Ari Fleischer Tells the Readers of the Wall Street Journal That They Are Stupid

Ari tries to make this case:

Yet President Obama says that "for some time now, when compared to the middle class," the wealthy "haven't been asked to do their fair share." He's right that the system isn't fair, but not because the top 1% pay too little. It is because they pay too much.

He tries with a few canards that have been debunked repeatedly – such as looking at the share of Federal taxes paid by each quintile of the population. To be fair, he also shows each quintiles share of national income on the way to comparing each quintiles effective tax rate – as long as we consider only Federal taxes. After all – no one really pays state and local taxes. Yes – I know Greg Mankiw loves to do the same thing. But any serious discussion of the tax burden cannot omit state and local taxes. And let’s read on:

We learned during the 2008 campaign that he believes in spreading the wealth around. And recently we learned he doesn't believe that successful people made it on their own. Without the government, the president tells us, job creators and entrepreneurs would not be able to make it in America. It's really the other way around. Without job creators and the successful, the government wouldn't have any money. So next time Mr. Obama meets someone in the top 1% or even the top 20%, instead of saying they're not paying their fair share, he should simply say thank you.

The only thing Ari left off was Art Laffer’s cocktail napkin!