Tax policy literature is not just for nerds. If you can bear to take a look at this article, you will see that federal income taxes have fallen to their lowest levels in many decades -- both as a percentage of the gross domestic product and as a percentage of all federal revenues. But federal payroll taxes are now at their highest in U.S. history when compared with total federal revenues.

It's all consistent with the Bush vision to turn the income tax into a wage tax. In this Republican moist dream, people who live off dividends, rents, and interest would contribute nothing to the federal Treasury -- government programs would all be paid for entirely by people who work for a living.

We've gone quite a ways in that direction already over the last three years.

All of you middle-class Bush backers out there: Look in the mirror. Can you say, "Sucker"?