Tony Snow Is An Insidious Nuisance

...with a huge rightie audience of those who will never question any data given them through the filter of their insecurities: "'families earning more than $100,000 would pay 73.3 percent of the total income tax burden. Families earning less than $50,000 would pay only 2.9 percent of the bill.' What Snow doesn't say is that families earning more than $100,000 pay a large proportion of the federal income tax because they earn a large proportion of the income - nearly half, in fact. Families earning less than $50,000 pay a small proportion of the federal income tax because they earn a small proportion of the income - about one-quarter. When you figure in other federal taxes, including the very regressive payroll tax - which conservatives steadfastly refuse to do - that pretty much erases whatever imbalance exists between tax proportion and income proportion. And that's not even counting state and local taxes, which are also notably regressive. According to a new study from Citizens for Tax Justice, a labor-funded nonprofit, the average state and local tax rate for the richest 1 percent of the population is 5.2 percent; for the middle 20 percent, 9.6 percent; and for the poorest 20 percent, 11.4 percent."

It no longer really matters whether or not someone like Tony Snow is lying. What matters is that his ilk continue to unbalance the public discourse - no matter the reason.