Here's another rant I posted to Facebook today (in lieu of my actual work):

 What counts as “fair share” of taxes is a totally subjective assessment. Most Americans do believe that the wealthy and corporations do not pay their “fair share,” although according to Pew, Democrats find this much more disconcerting than Republicans do. (Corporate taxes today make up around 10% of federal revenues, down from about a third of revenues in the 1950s.)

Sure, people have every right to claim deductions. But we aren’t talking about Trump taking advantage of deductions here, ffs.

If nothing else, we should recognize the way in which tax laws are set up and how the tax structure benefits the affluent much more than the poor – from deductions for having a mortgage to the low rate on capital gains. And it’s the latter in particular that has helped fuel the growing economic inequality in this country. The wealthy – including folks like Trump – are quite skilled at moving their money into categories that take advantage of lower tax rates so that they aren’t being taxed on income (at a high rate) but are taxed on investments (at a lower rate). They can afford to hire lawyers and accountants to do so.

While individual income tax does make up the largest share of government revenues, the fastest growing part of that revenue comes from the payroll tax. And most Americans – all but the wealthiest 20% – pay more in payroll taxes than they do in income taxes.

To Susanne’s point: Trump seemed to indicate last night he pays nothing in taxes. I agree with her that that is wrong. It is grossly unfair. (Indeed, some of the reporting out of The Washington Post suggests that Trump has used his foundation to commit tax fraud in his attempts to avoid paying taxes.) The Clintons, for what it’s worth, paid over $3 million. I’m sure that had they hired “the best people” as Trump does, they could have whittled that down. But they didn’t. Because when you are wealthy, you have an obligation to help fuel prosperity for everyone, not just line your own pockets. And almost all economists agree that raising taxes on the wealthy would have enormous benefits, including addressing the growing inequality that this country faces.