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There is a another point to that though: because the money has been taken from those people they are essentially being forced to pay to lower their own standard of living and to upgrade others to get closer to them. No wonder they are pissed at this tripple whammy.

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The money isn't really coming from them, though. Only 50% of U.S. households pay net taxes at all, so most of the lower-middle-class isn't paying anything, not even enough to cover their own use of government services, let alone anyone else's. I believe the top 1/3 pay virtually all taxes (>90%).

That's Federal Income tax they aren't paying, which is only one tax of many.

Welfare recipients still pay sales & use tax as well as property taxes (either directly or indirectly via rent payments).

Not to mention cigarette taxes and the lottery.

Think through the implications of those numbers you've posted, and particularly think about what that might imply about the distribution of wealth in the US.

The bottom 60% of the US population has around 5% of the aggregate wealth. That's the majority of the population.

The top 20% of the US population possess 84% of the wealth. And the curve is very steep, too; the top tenth of a percent holds a whole lot of that wealth, and it's increasing rapidly.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/july-dec11/makingsen...

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