Tax the rich

There is an old adage that says, don’t tax you and don’t tax me but tax the man behind the tree. In this case it is the millionaires. I am all for taxing rich people but it should be a means to help out the economy and I am not so sure that is the thing to do, at least at this time.
The top 1% earn 19% of the income and pay 37% of the income tax. The bottom 50% earn 13% of the income and pay 3% of the income tax. Since total income tax collect was $900 billion the top 1% paid $330 billion. It is suggested that we institute a millionaires surtax of 5% which would bring in an extra $16 billion. This would reduce the current deficit from 1400 billion to 1384 billion so it is not going to do much toward deficit reduction. What it would mean is another 16 billion to give to states to slow down the layoffs of government employees.
If the government fails to renew the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012, that will bring in an extra 400 billion and that indeed would make a dent in the deficit, assuming it is used to offset the deficit, which is in itself a very dubious assumption. The reason it would bring in so much money is that it hits the middle class taxpayers as well as the rich. If you fail to renew for those making more than $250,000 that will bring in 130 billion which is significant compared to the 5% surtax. That would mean that the top 1% would pay 50% of the income tax. I have no idea how much is too much but I get the feeling that would be close.