Left-wing U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the popular heartthrob of many socialists, made a media splash with her appearance Monday at a gala for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
AOC, a New York Democrat, donned an off-the-shoulder white gown whose back was emblazoned with the phrase “Tax the Rich” in a bold, blood-red lettering.
The radical lawmaker surely delivered a message to the blue-blooded 1-percenters who showed up to support one of the nation’s most famous museums.
But someone might ask how much more should they be taxed.
In a column on Monday, Terry Jeffrey, of the conservative website CNSNews.com, reported that the federal government once again set a record for tax collection in August.
Jeffrey noted that Washington has reaped $3.6 trillion in total taxes between the start of the fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2020, and Aug. 31. That was a record for an 11-month period in a fiscal year.
More than half of that – $1.83 trillion – came from individual income taxes.
In comparison, the previous record was set in 2018, as former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts kicked in. For the first 11 months of that year, the government’s haul in individual income taxes amounted to $1.65 trillion.
The problem – for the country, if not necessarily Washington – is that government spending continues to run amok.
The federal government doled out $6.3 trillion during the first 11 months of the year – generating an astronomical $2.7 trillion budget deficit for the current year.
Just last month, as The Free Press reported, Jeffrey had noted that the government set these records for the first 10 months of the fiscal year.
And most of that burden is carried by people like those AOC tried to harass at the Met Gala.
Back n March, the conservative Heritage Foundation released a report that showed the top 1 percent of earners – who make at least $540,000 a year – paid 40 percent of all federal income taxes.
Expand that to include the 5-percenters – or those who make at least $218,000 a year – and the ratio grows to 60 percent of all taxes.
Push out a little more to encompass those who make at least $87,000 a year, which translates to the top 25 percent, and that whole group bears 71 percent of the individual income tax load.
Comparatively the bottom half of earners pay just 3 percent.
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