Taxes are at their lowest levels in 60 years. “The relation between what is said in the tax debate and what is true about tax policy is often quite tenuous,” said Tax Policy Center co-director William Gale. “The rise of the Tea Party at at time when taxes are literally at their lowest in decades is really hard to understand.” Nearly 47 percent of Americans will pay no federal income taxes for 2009 because either “their incomes were too low, or they qualified for enough credits, deductions and exemptions to eliminate their liability.”