Chart of the Day: Being Rich in America is a Pretty Good Gig

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This will come as no surprise to any of you at this point — I hope — but it never hurts to see it again. The combination of the 1997 capital gains tax cut, the 2001 Bush tax cut, and the 2003 Bush tax cut has been fantastically beneficial to the richest of the rich in America. Most of us ordinary schlubs have seen our tax rates go down about three percentage points over the past decade or so. The rich have seen them go down about seven percentage points. And the super-duper rich? Their taxes have gone down nearly ten percentage points.

It’s pretty nice having a bought-and-paid-for Congress, isn’t it?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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