Reply #9: I have a plan called "55 minus 10" [View All]

short version:

1) take the rates from 1955, lop 10% off each bracket (20% becomes 10%, 22% becomes 12%, etc., on up to 91% becomes 81%)
2) adjust the bracket boundaries and personal deductions by a factor of 10 ($600 deduction becomes $6000, the $2,000 bracket becomes $20,000, etc.)

The main point of basing it off of the 1955 rate is to draw attention to the fact that this isn't some pie in the sky theory, this was in effect during the golden age of the American middle class.

An added bonus is the "throw it back in their faces" factor: when someone inevitably calls such a plan "communism", point out this is lower than the rates we had back then, and are they saying WE were the communists? At the height of the Cold war? And if so, what were the Soviets?