Re:USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from governmen...
by twoodfin on Tuesday April 18, 2017 @06:25PM
(#14143576)
It's pretty easily balance that -- you raise the threshold for payroll taxes and index it to inflation.
It's already indexed to wage growth rates, and there's nothing "easy" (or at least, shouldn't be) about a 12.4% marginal tax rate hike.
Re:USA Facts – Federal, state, and local data from governmen...
by Spooky23 on Tuesday April 18, 2017 @06:38PM
(#14143664)
It's easier than dealing with the blowback from slashing essential benefits from millions of seniors.
My guess would be that the marginal dollar provided to a 30th percentile income individual has a higher economic impact than a loss of 0.12 of a marginal dollar for a person making $150k.
Those surpluses that you're looking for were essentially just dumped on the federal balance sheet as non-marketable debt and spent on stuff like building aircraft carriers.
The "deficit" means that it's time to pay back those IOUs. It's pretty easily balance that -- you raise the threshold for payroll taxes and index it to inflation.
Flat tax is an awful, terrible idea. The reason that the 90% tax rates resulted in similar collection rates is that lots of things were deductible. All leases, most interest expenses. More people were essentially exempt from paying as well.