Bernie Sanders Would Tax The Income Of The Wealthiest Americans At 90 Percent

[LWolf]

49. To be accurate,

he said "No" to the question about 90% being too high, which can be interpreted to mean that he could back a 90 percent top marginal tax rate. It's possible that he might.

He did not say anything to lead to the "would" in the article's title.

That said, I agree with him. 90% is not too high, as the article points out a little later on:

Republicans have consistently claimed that higher tax rates on the wealthy will hold back economic growth, while lowering rates further will spur it forward.
But that’s not likely the case. Last year, economists found that the point at which the top tax rate is high enough to maximize government revenues but not so high that it discourages the rich from trying to earn more is quite high: about 95 percent for the 1 percent. History bears that out. Economists have pointed out that post-war American growth has been higher during periods with much higher top marginal tax rates and lower when tax rates were substantially lower. When the top rate was more than 90 percent in the 50s, economic growth averaged more than 4 percent a year. But recently when the top rate has been closer to 35 percent, growth has been less than 2 percent a year on average.