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From a recent CBO report http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/98xx/doc9884/12-23-EffectiveTaxRates_Letter.pdf, here are effective tax rates (total taxes divided by total income) for 2005, the most recent year available:

Lowest quintile: 4.3 percent
Second quintile: 9.9 percent
Middle quintile: 14.2 percent
Fourth quintile: 17.4 percent
Percentiles 81-90: 20.3 percent
Percentiles 91-95: 22.4 percent
Percentiles 96-99: 25.7 percent
Percentiles 99.0-99.5: 29.7 percent
Percentiles 99.5-99.9: 31.2 percent
Percentiles 99.9-99.99: 32.1 percent
Top 0.01 Percentile: 31.5 percent

For state and local taxes,http://www.itepnet.org/whopays3.pdf shows that lower income pays a higher tax rate (11%) than higher income (7%).

This from CBO is informative.

http://www.wealthandwant.com/issues/income/income_distribution.html

Here is the analysis by state of the total tax load (it's much higher on the poor than people realize).

http://www.itepnet.org/whopays3.pdf

This is updated as of 2009! More current than the 2006 version I was quoting.

The tax on the lowest quintile is up from 10.3% to 12.2% in only 3 years!

Another poster (GayBliss) provided a link to an analysis of taxation in the states. Check out the results for Washington: http://www.itepnet.org/whopays3.pdf

People making $20,000 or less, at an average of $11,000/year income, pay about 17.3% in various taxes, whereas people making $537,000 or more, with an average income of about 1.7 million/year, pay 2.9% of income. My examples didn't have the exact figures, but this paper does.

In Washington state currently, people earning less than $20,000 pay 17.3% in taxes. People earning over $537,000 pay just 2.9%

Even with this law, the richest will be paying less as a percentage of income than the poorest in the state.

This study (pdf) gives the numbers.

There is an analysis of the so-called "flat tax" at Citizens for Tax justice (www.ctj.org)

http://www.itepnet.org/sale0904.pdf

The Economic Policy Instuitute (http://www.epinet.org) has also analyzed the consumption tax.

Basically, in order to preserve the current level of government spending, it would need to be 45-60% It would represent a huge tax cut for the rich, since they consume a much smaller percentage of their income. It would shift most of the tax burden to the middle class.

Its a huge mistake..

The Republicans hidden agenda is to decimate the middle class..

See this article:
Hidden Agenda- The convention trumpets compassion, but the real Bush agenda is clear: Use tax policy to starve the government even more.

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root &n ame=ViewWeb&articleId=8449

a Swede earns between 25 and 45 percent of the salary of an American

Well, studio appartments in San Jose, CA are running $800-900 and in Pittsburgh, PA they're $600-700, versus Sweden at about $300, so if rents are any guide then purchasing power is at rough parity. Food costs about the same in both places, but no charge for healthcare, education,daycare, etc. in Sweden, so it's a wash.

the top one percent of Americans pay 36% of all income taxes -- and this is the system you describe as `regressive'

First of all, that factoid is misleading when you consider the proportion of income paid in relation to the other tax brackets -- you are ignoring sales and property taxes, for one thing. In relation to all the other countries, it is regressive because the amounts involved are tiny.

it's clear that you're not on the popular side of the upcoming election.

Please keep telling me that because I hope it will make me work harder. As for the correctness of the position, I hope we can discuss that in another part of this thread.

Do they? I have statistics which say the poor pay most of the taxes while the rich pay far less taxes yet pay more money in taxes (well they have more money so who cares how much money they pay)
http://www.itepnet.org/whopays.htm

Try reading Milton Friedman's works.

Friedman is a paid apologist for the oligarch lobby. dlm3 obviously listens to what he says about Keynes but not what he writes about Keynes's theses. If you are already comfortable with Friedman's style, and you want to get closer to reality, I recommend Galbraith.

Explain to me why emergency rooms collapse when the states offer free health care to illegal immigrants

That is not what I said. Countries that provide universal medical care have lower overall health care costs than those countries where otherwise treatable maladies don't receive treatment until they exhibit acute traumatic symptoms resulting in E.R. visits.

Why should we burden ourselves with ... notions of the rest of the world? We're not the world's last remaining superpower for nothing....

You have answered your own question. We are the world's last remaining superpower for the hundreds of billions of dollars that we pour into wasteful defense programs while cutting education and health care.

California is the most distressed state in the country because its inane government spends too much and taxes its citizens (with highly progressive taxes

Per capita, the California deficit is above average but not as bad as many places. If you think California has progressive taxation then you haven't been paying attention.

I agree with your dislike of sales taxes, which are regressive.

Republicans and Democrats are vying to figure out which tax they ought to raise to solve their problem.

Answer: The progressive taxes. In other words, don't do what California did in the 1990s.

Sweden has twice the taxes of the U.S. as a fraction of GDP, but they are far better when it comes to sustaining human life. Swedish companies like Ericson, Ikea, and Volvo are above average in their peer groups, so don't believe anyone who tells you that progressive taxes are bad for business.

When Davis came into office we had the biggest surplus in all of Californian history. At the end of his first term we now have the biggest deficit in our history. Were did all that money go?

Perhaps you remember back in the summer of 2000, when Bush began to approach Gore in national polls, how the stock markets reacted? Working families (80+% of the population) quickly lost around a trillion dollars in retirement and college tuition savings, as insurance companies and institutions lost investment portfolio wealth. Who do you think those losses were passed on to?

9/11 was not even barely the cause. The crash was in the Summer of 2000, when Bush spent enough on ads to poll even with Gore.

Now, three years later, we have the biggest deficit in history, and that's before factoring in the added cost of all the military pensions and healthcare that weren't facing us before the hawks decided that stopping with Afganistan wasn't enough. Every other wartime we've had a tax increase, but Bush seems content to pass the buck to the kids. Of course, if we did get a tax increase it would probably be regressive. But we're not getting a tax increase, we're getting bigger deficits, with the burden squarely on the backs of the working families. Come a year from November, I hope they notice.

timeshifting Rush Limbaugh

Why do you listen to guys that don't keep themselves fit?

Rush has been a paid political propagandist for the oligarch wing of the Republican party. His advocacy of military buildup has caused the largest budget deficit ever, placing his economics firmly against motherhood. His anti-progressive economics have hurt the working poor, and helped few other than the top 1%.

Rush Limbaugh has failed as a human being.