if the money the rich are paying is decreasing, it's ludicrous to claim that their "burden" is increasing simply because their percentage of overall tax revenue increases. Being a slightly larger piece of a shrinking pie does not mean that they're shouldering more of the load, in fact they're shouldering less absolute load, it's just that the overall load has been lightened a whole lot, because evidently, "deficits don't matter" (c) Dick Cheney.