I'll make this brief.
I live in New Jersey, I work in Manhattan, and my annual gross income (just) exceeds $260,000.
Rhetorically, I am "rich." In and of itself, I have no problem with this designation, so long as it is shorthand and intended to facilitate efficient dialogue.
Like most people who earn this amount of money where I live, I am subject to the Alternative Minimum Tax, so I pay an essentially flat 28% rate of Federal Income Tax on my gross income. I also pay Federal Social Security Tax on a capped basis, accounting for roughly 4% of my gross income.
Since I work in New York State, I am subject to a tax rate there that ends up being 8% of my gross income. This tax offsets almost all of my New Jersey State tax obligations, although the lack of certain deductions in NJ insures I still pay them 1% of my gross income each year.
If you're keeping score, we're at a 41% rate of tax on gross income, and we're not even at police, fire, schools and municipal utilities yet.
The local property tax assessment on my home is more than $26,000, or 10% of my gross income. This covers police, fire and schools. This does not cover water, sewer or sanitation, which come to roughly 1/2% of my gross income.
At present, I pay over 51% of my gross income as taxes.
Now, for my family. I am supporting a wife, 2 kids, and, overseas, my wife's parents, her sister and husband, and their 2 kids.
I'm also making my mortgage payments, despite my house being underwater.
Why am I telling you this?
NOT for your sympathies. I eat fresh food, sleep in a warm bed and can see a good doctor if I get sick.
No, I'm telling you this for political reasons. There are scores of people like me in Blue states, people who despite our tax burdens have continued to vote for the candidates who promised to raise our taxes further. All in a truly benevolent desire to see a better nation emerge.
Don't lose us.
Tone the rhetoric down.
Timothy Geithner doesn't really view me as "rich"- he views me as the hired help. Geithner participated in the looting of our Treasury for $1 trillion for the real rich. And I'm to pay it back?
The Democrats in the New Jersey Legislature, of their own accord, let a millionaire's tax here die in December, a gift to our wealthy Wall Street Democratic governor and his cronies. The Democratic Senators from New York are protecting Wall Street from any tax increases whatsoever.
Democrats. All.
Don't lose the many "me"s, please. Or the Scott Browns and Chris Christies will become the norm and not the exception.
PS
I'm anonymous here, so I don't mind the derision. But I'll tell you more about the "me" I'm referring to.
The town I live in is as progressive as any in America.
Relatedly, we have the highest property tax rates in the country, more than 4% of our home's value.
This is because we freely choose to have an exceptional public school system despite the fact fully one-half of our town's residents are exceedingly low-income. In my town, we are liberals who walk the walk. My property taxes pay for my 2 kids and for 2 other kids who pay nothing. It is benevolence.
You begin to lose folks like me when our taxes go up and our services go down. Both the healthcare reform bill and the financial reform bill were, in fact, elaborate hoaxes. Obama needs to tack left, not right. But he's surrounded by sellouts who represent the real rich, and they will have none of that.
/end of rant
Update
Must add: http://finance.yahoo.com/...
The real rich can keep all their ill-gotten gains because "the shame is enough", according to the Obama Administration. Yes, the shame is enough, for shameless people. Check.