> [...] the concern about the tax burden on
> the middle class - I don't get it.
I think this is tied up in the usual US'er concept of always looking up instead of down. You get a $10k raise in your wages, you think: $10k is a LOT ... but then you lose ~$3k of it and you don't think about the $7k of new money, you think about the $3k of new taxes. And then you think about the services that people below you get that you don't.
What a way to ruin a day.
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In the US, there's only the rich and the poor. Many in the middle think: poor is anyone who makes less than me. But the actual rich think: poor is anyone who makes less than $250k. That's really the dividing line, and it totally benefits the actual rich for many of the actual poor to think they aren't poor.
/jordan