WASHINGTON, DC: There’s no subtlety about Democrats’ tax plans. Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, details differ, but the central themes are identical: Soak the rich. To hear Democrats tell it, the country’s main budget problem is that the rich don’t pay their “fair share.” If they did, the fiscal outlook would brighten. We can now test this proposition, because the Clinton and Sanders tax proposals have been thoroughly analyzed by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center (TPC).

To begin, it’s worth noting that the rich, defined here as the “top 1 percent,” don’t escape taxation. Some manipulate the system to minimize or eliminate taxes, but as a group, the top 1 percent accounted for 14.6 percent of pretax income in 2011 and paid 24 percent of federal taxes, estimates the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Whether that’s a “fair share” is, of course, a matter of opinion.

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