RUSH: The next story we have from CNN Money: “Tax Increase on the Rich Would Impact Just 3% of Taxpayers.” What’s happening here? It’s small, but two stories in a row is some kind of a record. A breakout here of truth from the State-Controlled Media. “As the government looks for ways to climb out of its massive hole of debt, all eyes are on the rich.” No, they’re not! All eyes are on government. All eyes are not on the rich. But it’s CNN.

“President Obama and many of his fellow Democrats continue to call for higher taxes on the wealthy, and, according to the results of a CNN/ORC International Poll released
yesterday, many Americans agree that’s the only way the country can dig itself out of its current economic mess. About 63% of the 1,008 people interviewed over the phone said they think that the new bipartisan committee should raise taxes on higher income Americans and businesses. But, asks CNN, just how many of these rich people are there?” Now, you people know this, as regular listeners here. Not only do you know how many of them there are who earn over ten million a year (a little over 8,000), you know what their combined total tax payments are. Well, let’s see. Let’s read further together here and see what CNN says.

“Just how many of these rich people are there, and, are there enough of them for a tax increase to really make a dent for the US trillions of dollars in debt. President Obama has defined the nation’s wealthy as those who make $200,000 or more. According to a recent report from the IRS, that leaves out about 97% of the taxpaying population.” Well, shazam! So they’re accurate here: 3% is who we’re talking about. “A report which provides a complete breakdown and analysis from returns from the 2009 tax year found that only a mere 3% of tax returns were filed by people earning a gross adjusted income of 200 grand or more. Americans earning $1 million or more were even more rare, pricing just two-tenths of 1% of the population, of tax filers, accounting for a mere 236,000 of the 140 million tax returns received in 2009.”

So the number of millionaires filing taxes — uh, people that earn more than a million dollars, 236,000 — compared to 140 million tax returns received in 2009. “The wealthiest taxpayers, those earning $10 million or more in adjusted gross income are even less prevalent. There were only 8,274 people belonging to that elite club, according to the IRS.” CNN gets it right here. They’re a week behind, but they got it right. “Yet, even though these high income earners are a minority, Obama says the proposed tax increases would boost revenues by $750 billion over a decade, not quite the multitrillion-dollar figure the US needs to pay off the deficit, but for many of those who responded to the CNN/ORC International Poll, it’s evidently a good enough start.”

So the class envy works. At least CNN got the number right: Taxes on the rich would impact just 3%. Now, what they are trying to say is, “Go ahead and do it! My God, only gonna affect 3%? Soak ’em!” Let them have it.