1. What percentage of total income taxes is paid by the top 1.0% of households (those with adjusted gross incomes of $250,000 or more)?

a. 5%
b. 10%
c. 20%
d. 37%

The answer is 37% (up from 18% in 1981).

2. What percentage of income taxes is paid by families in the top 5% (those with adjusted gross incomes of $128,000 and more)?

a. 20%
b. 30%
c. 40%
d. 50%

The answer is 50%.

3. What percentage of all income taxes is paid by the top 10% of income earners (those with incomes of $80,000 or more)?

a. 30%
b. 35%
c. 40%
d. 65%

The answer is 65%.

4. What percentage of all income taxes is paid by the top 50% of earners?

a. 15%
b. 20%
c. 30%
d. 96%

The answer is 96%.

5. What is the income tax rate (reflecting Bush's tax cuts for the "rich") for a four-person household with an income of up to $40,000 per year?

a. 20%
b. 15%
c. 10%
d. 0%

The answer is zero. Zilch.

6. Under the Bush tax cuts for the "rich," what rate of tax is paid by a four-person family with an annual income of $60,000?

a. 25%
b. 20%
c. 15%
d. 6%

The answer is 6%.

7. What percentage of all income taxes is paid by the bottom 50% of all families?

a. 30%
b. 20%
c. 15%
d. 4%

The answer is 4%.

The New York Times, always proudly even-handed, reported last June that "50 million households will receive no benefit" from the Bush tax cuts - - a seemingly damning revelation. The fact is, of course, that those 50 million households pay little or no income taxes (about 4% of the total), and so it is not surprising that they do not benefit from lower income taxes. And if half of all American families pay little or no income taxes, who does pay income taxes? Why the "rich," of course. They pay 96% of the total.

Put simply, what the Bush legislation did do was provide a tax break for people who pay income taxes. What it did not do was provide a tax break for people who do not pay income taxes. It is noteworthy, however, that the legislation exempted an additional 3 million workers from any federal tax obligation and jacked up the per child income tax credit.

It should be obvious reader that the fairness argument is a shameless canard. For 20 years taxes paid by people in the upper brackets had gone up while taxes for everybody else had gone down. One might question the fairness of a system in which 30 or 40 million people pay no income taxes. In fact, millions of such people actually receive a check curiously labeled an "earned income tax credit" (welfare).

Apart from the fraudulent claim that the Bush tax law is a scurrilous scheme to further enrich the rich, one might audaciously ask (political heresy) whether enhancing the take home income of the prosperous, as well as the income of the un-prosperous, is not, in fact, a pretty good way to encourage investment, consumer spending, ambition, self-reliance, new business formation and pride. The record shows that tax cuts generally lead to increases in tax revenues! (The budget deficits of the 1980's did not derive from the Reagan tax cuts, which actually led to increased tax revenue, but from a spending orgy by a profligate Congress.)

The story goes that after passage of his tax cut legislation, President Kennedy was accosted by a left-leaning constituent. "Mr. President, isn't it true that your tax cuts favor the rich?" "I hope so," replied the President. To John Kennedy is also ascribed the remark that "a rising tide lifts all boats." It would seem obvious to even the most zealous leftist that a sound tax policy is one that abets general prosperity.