Buckley on Rich Paying Taxes
One cannot fault William Buckley’s consistency as a conservative Republican foe of progressive taxes (“The Rich Are Paying More Than Ever,” Column Right, May 13), but I would beg to point out his fractured inconsistency in his use of statistics. He proclaims as facts that when Ronald Reagan was elected “the richest 1% of taxpayers were paying 18% of all income taxes,” “the wealthiest 5% paid 38% of all income taxes” and “the wealthier 50% of Americans pay 94.5% of all federal income taxes.”
Convincing statistics, until one reads a few paragraphs down his startling admission that “it is instructive to remind ourselves that we do not know what was the wealth or even the income of the most affluent Americans in 1980--we know only what their taxable income was”! How in the world can he tell us what the “richest,” the “wealthiest” and the “wealthier” paid in taxes, when he admits we do not know the wealth or income of the most affluent, and therefore could hardly identify them to determine the statistics he quotes?
RAYMOND E. PONATH
La Mesa
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