House Republicans pushed through a tax cut for the wealthy yesterday by a vote of 244 to 185. Eighty percent of the tax savings, says the Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit venture of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution, would flow to the top 10 percent to taxpayers, and almost 20% would go to the top one-tenth of one percent.

Does this come as a shock? It shouldn't. Remember that just over one-third of one percent of the U.S. population contributed at least $200 in the 2004 federal elections. Big donors typically have more access and influnce with Congress than those who don't contribute. So it's no wonder that the tax policy that comes out of Congress favors them.