But the tax rates he wants would be something like 20% for income up to around $32k/year, reaching to 26% up to somewhere in the mid 90 000s per year.
No Earned income tax credit. No credit for single heads of households.
In other words, an income tax that's punitive on the rich but regressive on the poor. The middle class made out a bit better, but the lower 25% paid more in income tax than they do now. That bottom 40% or so where the tax they pay is all sales tax (around 8%), FICA & Medicare (around 8%) gets matched by 20 or 22% income tax. Yes, there are deductions, but they still paid more.
Of course, when people call for the 1950s tax rates all they really care about is the tax others pay.
What's funny is that with all the deductions and tax shelters, the rich paid about the same then as they do now in income tax in terms of percentage of income. Of course, they earn a greater percentage of total income now than then, so with the decrease in lower incomes' income tax burden and their greater total income they pay an even larger percentage of the total income tax now than they did then.
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