President Obama’s Budget will Spread More Wealth Around

Curtis Dubay / June 25, 2009

Everyone remembers President Obama’s now-infamous comment as a candidate that he thinks everyone is better when we “spread the wealth around.” Of course, we spread plenty of wealth around through the tax code before Obama became President. In 2006, the latest year of available data, the top 20 percent of earners paid over 86 percent of all income taxes. While the bottom 50 percent of earners paid almost no taxes whatsoever.

To get a complete picture of government redistribution, however, we need to know who receives the spending in addition to who pays the taxes. (more…)