MORE THOUGHTS ON TAXES AND PROGRESSIVITY, from James Joyner. “It’s not what it was before the Kennedy and Reagan tax cuts, by any stretch, but it’s hard to argue that those who earn 21.2% of the nation’s income should pay 39.4% of all federal income taxes when taken in isolation. Second, while FICA is undeniably a tax, it’s of a different sort than income taxes. Social Security is, in theory anyway, a pension system rather than a means of collecting general revenue. The reason the very rich pay a smaller percentage of their income into Social Security is that the payout is capped and therefore so is the collection threshold.”