1.  Primarily, the victory of ideology over facts; indeed, the creation of facts to fit ideology.

  2.  The triumph of deductive reasoning (which starts with a faulty assumption) over inductive reasoning.

  3.  The primary assumption upon which all else is based is beyond questioning--here assumptions about taxes....

  4.  Oversimplyfing the argument of progressives.

I discuss these points below.

  Item # 1.
There was no double dip recession under Clinton--or no double dip in the Bush recession under Clinton, as you put it.  The evidence here is clear and undisputed.  The recession began and actually ended before Clinton took office.  Many Republicans actually touted this at the time.  I remember in 1992 watching the unemployment rate actully drop the two months prior the 1992 election.  Under Clinton, there was no recession--it was always unambiguous postive growth.  The GDP was consistently going up and experienced at least a 2.5% increase every year.  How you can distort that data into a recession is beyond me.

See here for the GDP data.

The unemploymenat rate was consistently dropping under Clinton.  When he took office, the unemployment rate was 7.3%, and was 4.1% when he left.  

Here are the unemployment rate data.

So, you are completely wrong in your data.  

   Items #2 & 3.

  You start with the premise: Taxes always take money out of the economy.  Well, as actually stated, this is a tautology:  taxing people does take money out of the economy.  But you stretch this tautology into something more--the implied premise that raising taxes always hurts the economy.

From this premise, all your reasoning flows.  You deduce how the economy must have responded given the fact that increasing taxes always hurts the economy.  

Inductive reasoning is the reverse.  What do the facts actually say.  Create a theory to fit the facts....Instead of finding, or cherry picking, facts to fit the pre-ordained theory--which you did when said that there was a double dip recession under Clinton.

The problem with your tautology of "taxes always take money out of the econony" is that, although it is a cute attempt at word play, you are assuming that taking money out of the economy via taxation always results in poorer economic growth.  The problem is that you have ignored all kinds of other variables.  Such as the interest rate. Such as spending--which puts the tax money back into the economy.   Such as productivity increases.  Such as investment spending.  Such as consumer spending.  Such as wage growth.  Such as inflation.  Such as trade data.  Such as by how much did the marginal tax rates go up.  You have telescoped the entire financial world into one variable--a rise in taxes; and it does not matter even if they go up only slightly, the conclusion is always the same:  a rise in taxes always hurts the economy.....That is an ideological assumption, not an empirical one.....

This emphasis of ideology over facts is perhaps best highlighted by conservatives' failure to remember that Reagan raised taxes--at the time a very large tax increase.  Bet you forgot that.....

 Item # 4.

 In my post to which you respond, I was arguing that the economy did great under Clinton and the increase in taxes did not harm the economy.  That is a different argument than the increase in taxes caused the growth.

It is beyond dispute that the Clinton tax increase did not harm the economy.  It basically balanced the budget.  This fact explodes the notion that raising taxes will always harm the economy.

And, there are those who would argue that raising taxes did lead in part to the growth during the Clinton years.  Raising taxes helped balance the budget, which helped to keep interest rates low (which any good monetarist would say is the key variable), and which gave people confidence in our overall financial health, which set the stage for the tech boom.  But I need not go there to explode conservative myths about taxes.  The data showed that Clinton raised taxes and the economy improved thereafter.  These events are correlated even if there is no causal link.  That correlation alone destroys conservative dogma about taxes....

Now. Is that "fair?" My comment didn't address that, just noted what was going on.

Presently the top 5% pay 95% of the FIT.

What I do know is that pre-retirement I could have saved a lot more if I hadn't been paying such very high taxes.

Was that fair?

Only as long as I don't need the money I didn't but could have saved for something like Medicare payments which Obama is gonna take $500 billion from to pay for insurance for...