Timothy Noah  David Brooks Is Unwell   David Brooks has
indigestion because President Barack Obama, whom Brooks rather
likes, wants to raise taxes on the rich. "He repeated the old
half-truth about millionaires not paying as much in taxes as
their secretaries." Why is that a half-truth? Because "the top
10 percent of earners pay nearly 70 percent of all income taxes,
according to the I.R.S."  Oh, please. The top 10 percent pays
nearly 70 percent of all income taxes because the top 10 percent
makes half the income--49.74 percent, including capital gains,
before the recession and only slightly less now. (My source is
the World Top Incomes Database, a fantastic Web resource put
together by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Facundo Alvaredo and
Tony Atkinson. Share it with the class warrior in your life.)
The relevant statistic isn't what proportion of the nation's
taxes comes from the rich. It's what proportion of the rich's
income gets paid in taxes. Brooks cites a Congressional Budget
Office report that says peop