Let’s do some math.  Suppose I had an earned income of $10,000.000.  (Disclaimer:  I do not make $10,000,000 a year.)  At the present tax rate of 35 per cent I would pay $3,500,000 leaving me with $6,500,000 to live on.  Now if the proposed tax rate of 39.6 went into effect I would pay $3,960,000 meaning I would have to get by on a measly $6,040,000.  But some tax rate hike proposals exempt the first $500,000 meaning I would pay 39.6 per cent of $9,500,000 or $3,762,000 now leaving me with $6,238,000.  Now if, hypothetically, all my income was unearned (you know capital gains and dividends) I would pay only 15 per cent in taxes, so I’d pay $1,500,000 and have to scrape by with $8,500,000. The whole point of this mathematical exercise is that people like me who do not earn $10,000,000 a year and who dutifully pay their taxes have no conception of why enormously rich people are so adamant about not wanting to pay more in taxes.  Now the philosophical question is, do really rich people hate taxes all that much or is it because 1) Republican politicians are doing the bidding of the exceedingly rich donors who are greedy and do hate taxes or 2) Republican politicians are really dumb and have no other ideas to campaign on.  Those of us in the 98 per cent simply can’t understand why the one per cent does not want to contribute a little more for the good of our country. Warren Buffet excluded.