While progressives attack the Bush tax cuts and President Barack Obama wants to let them expire for families making over $250,000, figures released by the IRS show the wealthiest 1% actually paid more in taxes after the Bush tax cuts were passed, and the bottom half of taxpayers actually paid less in income taxes. 

According to IRS data, the “richest 1% paid $84 billion more in taxes in 2007 than they had in 2000,” a 23% increase. In addition, their “share of the overall income tax burden grew, climbing from 37% in 2000 to 40% in 2007.” All this occurred even though their rates went down. 

The IRS numbers also found the bottom half of taxpayers “paid $6 billion less in income taxes in 2007 than they had seven years earlier,” which is a 16% decrease, and “their share of the total income tax burden actually went from 3.9% to 2.9%.”

Further, as Investors Business Daily noted, the Bush tax cuts also pushed millions of people off of the tax rolls entirely because Bush “doubled the per-child tax credit to $1,000 and lowered the bottom rate to 10%.”