The Flat-Tax Fraud, And The Necessity Of A Truly Progressive Tax

This is absurd. It means a professional who's making, say, $380,000 a year pays the same income-tax rate as a plutocrat pulling in $2 billion or $20 billion.

Our current flat tax at the top is treating the nation's professional class exactly the same as it treats super-rich plutocrats. My doctor pays the same rate as Steve Forbes.

Actually, it's worse than that because the plutocrats get most of their income in the form of capital gains, which are taxed at only 15 percent. That's why America's 400 richest people -- who earned an average of $300 million last year, and who have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans put together -- now pay at a 17 percent rate (according to the IRS).

The Republicans' push for a flat tax masks what's really going on.

Remember: The top 1 percent is now raking in over 20 percent of the nation's total income and owns over 35 percent of the nation's wealth. Under almost anyone's view of fairness, these are grotesque portions. They're especially large relative to what they were as recently as thirty years ago, when the top 1 percent raked in under 10 percent. And these huge portions at the top continue to increase.

Meanwhile, the top tax bracket is now 35 percent -- the lowest it's been in three decades. Between the end of World War II and 1980 it never fell below 70 percent. 

Simple fairness requires three things: More tax brackets at the top, higher rates in each bracket, and the treatment of all sources of income (capital gains included) exactly the same.

Not only fairness demands it, but also fiscal prudence. A truly progressive tax would bring in tens of billions of dollars a year from the people at the top who are in the best position to afford it.

Regressives are pushing the flat tax as a smokescreen. They'd rather not have anyone talk about the unfairness and fiscal absurdity of the current system.

Rather than merely oppose the flat tax, sensible people should push for a truly progressive tax -- starting with a top rate of 70 percent on that portion of anyone's income exceeding $5 million, from whatever source.