Soak the rich, cut their taxes

Investor’s Business Daily notes that surging tax receipts could help President Bush make good on his pledge to cut the deficit in half in 2006, three years earlier than he proposed. Tax revenues are running $176 billion, or 12.9%, over last year, and the Congressional Budget Office said receipts have risen faster over the first eight months of fiscal '06 than in any other such period over the past 25 years — except for last year's 15.5% jump. Despite Bush's tax cuts—or perhaps because of them--those making over $200,000 now pay 46.6% of total income taxes, an increase of 6.1%. Before Bush took office, a couple earning $1 million a year paid 33 times as much as the couple making $60,000. Today they are paying 38 times as much. (HT: Instapundit)