A recent WSJ article outlines some truly astonishing numbers.

First, keep in mind those making $200,000 or more annually, or roughly the top 2% wage-earners, accounted for 62% of all federal individual income receipts in 2006.  The top 1% accounted for 39.9% of all income tax revenues.

As Jason discussed a few days ago, I thought the wealthy folks in the U.S. don’t pay their fair share?

But with respect to where this country is heading, what is even more amazing:

A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That’s less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable “dime” of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

So there you go.  All we have to do is tax everyone who makes $75,000 a year at a marginal income tax rate of 100%, and we could pay for 2010 federal spending.  Why not?