Top earners pay 37 percent of federal tax bill

Those in the top 10 percent of income ($112,124 and above) paid 70.47 percent of taxes. So 10 percent of Americans paid more than two-thirds of all federal taxes in 2009. This means that 90 percent of income-earning Americans, those of us not included in the top 10 percent of income earners, paid the balance, just 29 percent of all the federal taxes paid. How can the president keep a straight face when he says high-income people aren't paying their fair share of the taxes?

Obama does the American people an injustice by pitting us against each other — pitting those who are fortunate, whose circumstances enable them to have a good income, against those of us on the lower income and economic scale. His statements aren't supported by the facts. In the end, we're all in this together, rich and poor, healthy and ill, young and old.

This is our country and we'd better start acting like we know what the score is. Obama is betting that Americans don't know the truth — or don't care. Do you care?

John Kokalis, Weatherford