t r u t h o u t - Paul Krugman | Springtime for Hitler

Last year the Treasury Department did release a table showing, somewhat inadvertently, that more than 25 percent of the income tax cut will go to people making more than $200,000 per year. This number doesn't include the effects of estate tax repeal; in 1999 only 2 percent of estates paid any tax, and half of that tax was paid by only 0.16 percent of estates. The number also probably doesn't take account of the alternative minimum tax, which will snatch away most of the income tax cut for upper-middle-class families, but won't affect the rich.

Put all this together and it becomes clear that, sure enough, something like 40 percent of the tax cut -- it could be a bit less, but probably it's considerably more -- will go to 1 percent of the population.

When Ronald Reagan cut taxes on rich people, he didn't deny that that was what he was doing. You could agree or disagree with the supply-side economic theory he used to justify his actions, but he didn't pretend that he was increasing the progressivity of the tax system.

The strategy used to sell the Bush tax cut was simply to deny the facts -- and to lash out at anyone who tried to point them out. And it's a strategy that, having worked there, is now being applied across the board.