One of the tenets of the Obama presidential campaign was the idea that we needed to tax millionaires and billionaires to fix our budget problems. A lot of voters who were not really paying attention decided that ‘the rich’ should be punished for their success and should contribute more. No one bothered to explain to them that even if you took all the money from the wealthy, it really wouldn’t help with the deficit because the problem is spending–not taxing.

The truth of who pays what is a little different. The Heritage Foundation reports:

The top 10 percent of income earners paid 71 percent of all federal income taxes in 2009 though they earned 43 percent of all income. The bottom 50 percent paid 2 percent of income taxes but earned 13 percent of total income. About half of tax filers paid no federal income tax at all.

Just for the record, in case anyone assumes I have a vested interest in this battle, I am not in danger of entering the top 10 percent of income earners. However, what I have learned over the years is that when the taxes go up on the rich, the rest of us suffer.

Meanwhile, Examiner.com reported today on some interesting tweets from Obama voters. These voters have received their first paycheck of the new year.

Some sample tweets posted in the article (please excuse the language, but some of these people are upset):

Twitter user Dave Cardenas15 tweeted, “Obama is the biggest f**king liar in the world why the f*ck did I vote for him.”

Another Twitter user said, “Idk why but I feel like I’ma regret voting for Obama.”

Some of the users wish they had voted for Mitt Romney as expressed by Warren G who tweeted, “I should have voted for Romney, I want a do over.”

Hilda Brown, a user on Warren G’s Twitter account replied back and said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion but do you really think Romney would have done a better job than Obama?”

Warren G responded, “My paycheck says yes.”

The Examiner article further reports:

Peterson (Hayley Peterson of the UK’s Mail Online news site) also said, “Earners in the latter group will pay an average 1.3 percent more – or an additional $2,711 – in taxes this year, while workers making between $30,000 and $200,000 will see their paychecks shrink by as much as 1.7 percent – or up to $1,784 – the D.C.-based think tank reported. Overall, nearly 80 percent of households will pay more money to the federal government as a result of the fiscal cliff deal.”

Part of the increase in middle class taxes is due to the fact that the Social Security tax is now back to what it had been previously, but other tax increases currently aimed at those making over $200,000 a year may filter down to the middle class fairly quickly as the cost of Obamacare rises.

Punishing the rich is not really a good economic policy. It winds up hurting everyone.

JUST A NOTE: The Washington Times also posted a story about the reaction from Obama voters on their decreased paychecks. It is enjoyable reading.