Factoid of the Day

This one is courtesy of New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg who fancies himself an Independent:

The mayor said "51, 52 percent of our taxes come from people making $500,000 or more."

"Five thousand people back in 2006, it's probably a little more diverse today, but in 2006, 5,000 people paid 30 percent of the taxes in New York City.

"If only 1,500 of that 5,000 people move to Connecticut, that would cut 10 percent of our tax base, that's another $3.5 billion," added Bloomberg, who has repeatedly warned that higher income taxes will damage the city's already reeling economy.

5,000 people out of 8 million pay 30% of the city's taxes.

The financial crisis is hitting the top wage earners in the city hard, which we've already seen as a result of flagging revenues at the state and local level in the NYC metro area. It's only going to get worse if the state seeks to impose still more taxes on these people.

That you have so few people paying so much under the current taxing scheme shows the redistributionist nature of the tax system and how so many people are tethered to the wealth of so few people in the private sector. The City's fiscal well being is predicated on taking the revenue from this select number of people, and spreading it around.

Without the revenues coming in from a healthy Wall Street, there's no money to spread around, which means that the government has to target someone for the shortfall.

UPDATE:
Don Surber links. Thanks!