Behold, the income tax rates necessary to erase the deficit,
via The TaxProf Blog,
Lots more at the Tax Foundation, which asks, Can Income Tax Hikes Close the Deficit?
this only “erases the deficit” – it does not even make a small dent in the debt which stands somewhere in the 11 trillion dollar area.
The table ignores, of course, the impact on incomes that will derive from these higher rates. People who have enough income to hire help, when taxed at 95.2% federally and 8% or so by their states, have nothing left. Bye-bye jobs! The Tax Foundation piece describes this problem quite well.
Of course they’ll never cover the deficit and pay it all back. It is bound to fall apart sometime. It won’t be pretty. And politicians don’t have the will to reduce spending now, anyway.