Getting soaked is a crock of BS. They're paying often times 20% effective tax rates.

And when income and wealth inequality is as bad as it is today, what you're pointing out points to how ridiculous the economic system is when almost half of Americans pay no federal income taxes and still see their effective income drop over the last four decades, while the rich have experienced steady income increases during that time.

IE, the inequality is so great, even if you literally don't have people pay taxes, it's still resulting in growing wealth inequality.

And I'm sure you're gonna claim that I'm suggesting pure income/wealth equality is what we want, which I'm not. However, it is absolutely essential to a functioning market economy that wealth and income inequality do not become too great, as that was one of the contributing factors to the Great Depression. If the economic lower class does not have money to purchase goods and services the businesses owned by the rich produce, those businesses will inevitably decline.

Holy hell, the 80s really were awful in just about everything.

Yep. I was quoting a line from the song...

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
I was trying to coyly determine if your name was a reference to

but I'm still not sure based on your reply. That's what I get for trying to be coy.

In reply to this comment by heropsycho:
And the static of my mind...

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
...dreamer?

And the static of my mind...

In reply to this comment by xxovercastxx:
...dreamer?