Has new CBO study on % of taxes paid by rich been discussed?

The CBO study released this week provides ample evidence that the richest Americans are paying their “fair share” of federal taxes. In fact, the richest 20% of Americans by income aren’t just paying a share of federal taxes that would be considered “fair” — it goes way beyond “fair” — they’re shouldering almost 100% of the entire federal tax burden of transfer payments and all other non-financed government spending. What’s probably not so fair is that the bottom 60% isn’t just getting off with a small tax burden or no tax burden – the bottom 60% are net recipients of transfer payments from the top 20% to the tune of about $10,000 per household in 2011. So maybe what the CBO report shows is that we should be asking whether or not the bottom 60% are paying their fair share when they’re not paying anything – they’re net recipients of transfer payments that come from “the richest” 20% of American households. When the top 20% of US households are financing almost 100% of the transfer payments to the bottom 60% and financing almost the entire non-financed operating budget of the federal government, I’d say “the rich” are paying beyond their fair share of the total tax burden, and we might want to start asking if the bottom 60% of “net recipient” households are really paying their fair share.

As Morgan points out in the comments, it’s important to note for the discussion here that the US has the most progressive tax system among all OECD countries, see the Tax Foundation president Scott Hodge’s article “No Country Leans on Upper-Income Households as Much as US.” Specifically, the top ten percent of American households pay 45.1% of all income taxes (both personal income and payroll taxes combined), which is the highest of any of the 24 countries in the OECD and far above the 31.6% average.