mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.nihongo@verizon.nut> wrote:
> 
>>mtfester@netMAPSONscape.net wrote:
> 
> 
>>>Kevin Wayne Williams <kww.nihongo@verizon.nut> wrote:
> 
> 
>>>>Because they were proportionate to the tax burden borne by the upper 
>>>>brackets. 
> 
> 
>>>Sorry, no they weren't. 
> 
> 
>>>Trivially, in 1986, the upper 1% income bracket had a 25.75% overall
>>>contribution to the federal tax collections. The upper 5% paid 42.57%.
>>>
>>>In 1987, after the tax reform, the numbers were 24.81% for the upper 1%,
>>>and 43.25% for the upper 5%. In other words, the burden simply shifted
>>>downwards, NOT in proportion to what they had paid, but for the very
>>>richest.
>>
>>So, let me see... you judge proportionality of taxes between the upper 
>>and lower classes by a 1% shift in the upward tax burden in the top 5% 
> 
> 
> And I note that the avg tax rate for the upper 1% went from 33.13% to 
> 26.41%, while the overall upper 5% went from 25.68% to 22.10%, the
> overall upper 10% from 22.64% to 19.77%, etc.
> 
> Indeed, I believe I already posted this table in repsonse to Mssr
> Gerry's rant.
Yes. And by repeating it, you proved that you didn't comprehend my 
earlier post. If you want to demonstrate your thesis, you would have to 
plot the ratio of (taxes paid before) to (taxes paid after) for each 
individual, small, non-overlapping group, fit it to a curve, and 
generate a best fit formula for the result. If it is too scattered, you 
could try to determine a correlation factor between income and ratio. 
Taking overlapping groups of arbitrary size and comparing them without 
taking the steepness of the data curve into account and random shifts of 
the population in and out of your groups just generates numbers, not a 
statistical analysis.
> 
> Really, Mr Williams, I'm sorry that there are standard definitions
> involved, but there you are.

I'm sorry that you couldn't handle your statistics and data analysis 
courses the first time through. Perhaps you could go back to school and 
try again?

KWW