NO ONE HAS IT HARDER THAN THEIR GRANDDAD DID:

More Progressive All the Time: The wealthiest Americans now pay a significantly greater share of federal taxes than they did when Ronald Reagan first took office. (The American, May/June 2008)

According to the CBO, the highest quintile of income earners paid 68.7 percent of all federal taxes—including individual income taxes, social insurance taxes, corporate income taxes, and excise taxes—in 2005, the most recent year for which data are available. To put that figure in perspective, the top quintile paid only 56.4 percent of federal taxes in 1981. The bottom quintile barely pays any federal taxes: its share of the burden has fallen from 1.8 percent in 1981 to 0.8 percent in 2005.

What about the middle classes? Well, the second quintile has gone from paying 6.8 percent of federal taxes in 1981 to paying 4.1 percent in 2005. The middle quintile has seen its burden drop from 13 percent in 1981 to 9.3 percent in 2005. The fourth quintile paid 21.8 percent in 1981 and 16.9 percent in 2005.