Under reasons to tour the web once in a while in reading the comments on Bill Quick's great site a commenter suggested reading Neal Bootz's site. I hadn't hit it in a long time, shame on me. In addition to an outstanding take on the Alabama Ten Commandments hulabaloo, he posts this within a commentary on "tax the rich":

Republican candidate Peter Ueberroth has some interesting statistics for those of you who think this "tax the rich" thing is such a good idea. In 2001 there were 44,000 taxpayers in California reporting incomes of $1,000,000 or more. One year later there are only 29,000. In 2000 millionaires paid $15 billion in California income taxes. That was 37% of the total amount of state income tax paid by all Californians. One year later this figure was cut almost in half, down to $8 billion or 25% of total state income taxes paid. Some of this is due to reduced incomes for some high-achievers. But the evidence is clear. .....

Go there, it's more than worth it. Late add emailer Katherine K let me know that the stats in this case are seriously flawed. She pointed out that the "millionaires" included the dot com guys who actually went broke and that nobody knows where a lot of them went etc. So......????? Thanks Katherine.