Joint Economic Committee ranking member Jim Saxton (R-NJ) musters moral fibre to stand up for the downtrodden richest one percent among us to lament the growing burden that increasing shares of income are placing upon this voiceless group. It's true: According recently-released IRS data, while the richest one percent of taxpayers (as measured by adjusted gross income) saw their share of income grow from 20.8 percent to 22.1 percent from 2000 to 2006, they also saw their share income taxes climb from 37.4 to 39.9 in that same time. Meanwhile, those lucky duckies in the bottom 50 percent of income earners -- those earning less than $31,987 -- had their share of the tax load lifted. From 2000 to 2006, when they saw their share of income decrease from 13.0 percent to 12.5 percent, those earners in the lower half of the income distribution were sticking it to the upper half as they reduced their share of the overall income tax burden from 3.9 percent to 3.0 percent. Fear not, one-percenters! You can look forward to a lighter income tax burden after Thursday, when the minimum wage skyrockets to $6.55. It won't be long before they catch up to your average hourly income of $660 and share equally in your tax burden. (click to enlarge)