The Joint Committee on Taxation in Congress has issued a new report on tax burdens across the United States. The Committee used data from the Tax Policy Center and divided the public into five income groups. What they found was that the top 20 percent of earners paid 87 percent of the taxes in the country. The remaining 80 percent covered 13 percent of the burden. The data could challenge the common mantra of politicians that the top earners do not pay their fair share. Though the concentration of wealth should be considered (and a recent study found that one percent of the world’s wealthiest individuals control two-thirds of the world’s wealth), the figures in the United States shows an increasing tax burden in the top 20 percent range. We have previously discussed such studies and the disconnect between the rhetorical and the statistical in tax debates.
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You have heard of the NRA but how about 
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The scandals swirling around EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt continues to get worse by the day. The latest leak 
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A Beijing sperm bank is looking for millions of fellow travelers in possible donor sperm. Peking University Third Hospital has insisted that donors must “love the socialist motherland.” You must also pass medical testing.
Below is my column on The Hill newspaper on the significance (and coverage) of the Washington Post story that President Donald Trump is not a target of the Mueller investigation but only a subject of the investigation. None of this means that the risks for Trump in a sit down interview do not remain high. Even as a subject, he could be accused of false statements — a concern with a President known to go “off script” in meetings.
After declaring that Democrats who want her to be quiet are sexist, Hillary Clinton is back on her speaking tour blaming her defeat on everyone from the James Comey, self-hating women, Russians, Bernie Sanders, and misogynists for her defeat. Everyone except herself. Now Clinton has 
California reached a milestone recently in its immigration laws: the state has now given over one million illegal or undocumented immigrants driver’s licenses. Passed in 2013 by sponsor Luis Alejo, 
For a number of years, I have been writing about the lack of due process for our students and faculty in cases of alleged sexual harassment or assault in colleges or universities. (For prior columns, click 
There is an interesting disclosure in the filing this week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last August expanded the mandate for Mueller in allowing him to pursue collusion allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as well as criminal conduct linked to his controversial dealings with Ukraine. The expansion shows not only the close supervision by Rosenstein but the care taken by Mueller not to exceed his mandate, which was already quite broad. 
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on