Hear the whining sound? That's the sound of the right-wing spin machine warming up. It's target?
This little item.
President Bush reported $822,126 in adjusted gross income for last year, on which he paid $227,490 in federal income taxes - or about 28 percent, according to the president's federal returns released Tuesday by the White House.
Compared to last year, that's actually LESS, by about 3%. Cheney, with his income of $1.3 million, made off even better, shelling out only 20% of his income, or $253,067, a reduction of nearly $90,000 when compared to last year. Tax Cuts For The Rich: Mission Accomplished!
Expect the right's spin-meisters to latch onto this as somehow "evidence" that all rich folks are paying massive taxes and ::GASP:: their taxes are actually a HIGHER dollar amount than the taxes paid by the average pooer person!!! Convenient fodder to deflect attention away from the earlier report that 60% of all businesses didn't pay ANY taxes in 2000, and from the fact that the IRS has decreased the number of business audits it has conduced, whereas it has raised the number of personal audits.