Those highest class twerps pay something llke 90% of the taxes.
Used to, but no longer. Here is a graph of the top income tax bracket from 1912 to 2008:
The last time that "those highest class twerps" paid anywhere close to 90% was in
1963 at the end of
fourteen years of a top tax rate of 91% (glossing over two years at 92%). That's also not including the only other time that the top tax rate exceeded 90% (94% during WWII in 1944 and 1945, up from 88% in the previous two war years). And corporate tax rates are normally much lower.
Someone will point out that the actual amount that the richest paid was less because of all the tax breaks and loopholes that they used, but that does not change the fact that those were the only times when the richest could have been on the hook for 90% in taxes. With the subsequent much lower top rates, their effective taxes after tax breaks and loopholes would have been even lower, not higher.
Also note that that was from 1950 to 1963, thus including the entirety of the the 50's, that golden age of economic growth and prosperity which is the only period of time that could be what MAGA-heads are dreaming about. And what made it so prosperous? A top income tax rate of 91% perhaps?
We can see historical patterns in that graph. In the 20's with its growing income inequality and rampant shady speculative "investing" that ended in economic disaster, the Great Depression, the top rate was a measly 25%. That was raised to 63% in 1932 and then to 79% in 1936 to pull our economy out of that pit and to finance our recovery. Then of course the rate went up during WWII and then dropped about ten points to 82% in the second half of that decade when WWII ended. The increase to 91% in 1950 coincides with the Korean War and the start of the Cold War and the rate remained at 91% throughout the 50's as we built up our infrastructure.
I can't think of what caused the precipitous drop in 1963/1964 to 70% during LBJ's administration. It blipped up to 77% at the height of the Vietnam War and then dropped back down to 70% until Reagan. In 1982 the rate dropped to 50% and then again down to 50% in 1988. I remember Reagan's great "Tax Cut" all too well. As a middle class taxpayer (software engineer with a two-income family where we were doing slightly better than struggling to get by), that "tax cut" had me owing about twice as much in income tax and everybody I talked to had the same experience. As a result, every time Republicans talk about "tax cuts", I get very nervous -- just look at the GOP's recent Tax Scam that they want the vanishing middle class to pay for.
Reality bites, Faith.