Soaking everybody won’t fix the debt

So you want to eliminate the federal deficit by taxing the rich? OK, let’s run the numbers.

Start with those making $1 million or more a year. For 2012, the Joint Committee on Taxation (Congress’ official estimator) estimates that these super-rich will make up just 0.3 percent of all tax filers and pay $269 billion in income tax (23.6 percent of the income-tax total).

Even doubling their income-tax bill would leave us $1 trillion short.

That’s the kind of Washington spending the federal income-tax machine is up against. The president’s budget estimates 2012 federal spending at $3.796 trillion and revenues $2.469 trillion, for a shortfall of $1.327 trillion (the second-highest in US history, after 2009’s.)