Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) has drawn the ire of a number of conservative bloggers after comments she made about taxes on WLS Chicago's Don Wade and Roma radio show Wednesday.
Towards the end of her interview on the program, Wade asked Schakowsky, "Out of every dollar that I earn, how much do you think that I deserve to keep?" -- a question similar to one asked by a high school student during the CNN-Tea Party Express GOP presidential candidate debate earlier this week.
"I’ll put it this way. You don’t deserve to keep all of it and it’s not a question of deserving because what government is, is those things that we decide to do together," Schakowsky responded. "And there are many things that we decide to do together like have our national security. Like have police and fire. What about the people that work at the National Institute of Health who are looking for a cure for cancer."
(Scroll down to listen to Schakowsky's exchange with Wade over taxes.)
But Wade repeated the question, one he described as "very simple," though Schakowsky begged to differ.
"I’m not going to give you a percentage, I don’t know what your income is," Schakowsky continued. "I think you need to pay your fair share, in order to do the things that we’ve decided are national priorities."
The interview has been picked up by FOX News, Andrew Breitbart's Big Government and other conservative blogs.
Earlier this month, Schakowsky, a member of the House deficit commission, told CBS News that "we have this growing elite that makes the economy of the United States look more like a banana republic than an economic democracy," as part of an analysis of data indicating an expanding U.S. wealth divide.
In response to Schakowsky's interview, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), House Budget Committee Chairman, told WLS that no more than 25 percent of any individuals' income should be taxed.
"What we're proposing in the House budget that we passed in April is no more than 25 percent should be taken from [Americans], from the federal government," Ryan told WLS. "What we're proposing is bring the top tax rate down on individuals and businesses to 25 percent. And you can do that without costing the government money so to speak by getting rid of loopholes."
Alternatively, the tax plan that Schakowsky proposed earlier this year would raise the tax rate for millionaires -- specifically to 45 percent for those earning between $1 and $10 million annually in income including capital gains and dividend income. Those earning $1 billion or more would be taxed at 49 percent of their income.
Listen to Schakowsky's comments from the radio show here: