Taking from the richest, giving to the rich
The Tax Policy Center has published an analysis of Rep. Charles Rangel’s sweeping tax bill, and it’s illuminating. Rangel wants to abolish the Alternative Minimum Tax, reduce the top corporate tax rate and increase the standard deduction for individuals. He’d pay for those tax cuts by limiting certain deductions for high-income taxpayers, and imposing a 4.4-percentage-point surcharge on high earners.
The proposal would provide a small amount of relief to low-income taxpayers. For the lowest 20 percent of all earners, the tax cut in 2008 amounts to about $85 apiece. The big benefit flows to people much higher up the income distribution. Those reporting income of between $100,000 and $200,000 would get a tax cut of $1,569 apiece, and people earning between $200,000 and $500,000 would get tax cuts averaging $3,582. (These folks are often referred to as upper middle class but they are, in fact, wealthy. An income of $200,000 would put you solidly in the uppermost 5 percent of American taxpayers. At any rate, this group would bear the brunt of the alternative minimum tax under current law.)
Their wealthier friends would pay for those tax cuts. People earning between $500,000 and $1 million would pay $11,497 in additional taxes; those earning more than $1 million would pay an extra $101,082.
So this bill would redistribute income in some important ways. But in Robin Hood terms, it’s not exactly taking from the rich to help the poor; it’s more like taking from the really rich to benefit the merely rich.
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David Nicklaus has covered St. Louis business for more than 25 years. His column appears three days a week on the Post-Dispatch business page. 
Here you go again, putting rightwing spin on a proposal to deal with the Alternative Minimum Tax issue. (And, again, citing a think tank without giving a description of its origin, backers, etc.–although, in this case, most sources describe the Tax Policy Center(which is a project of the Brookings Institution)as “nonpartisan.” The newspaper should clearly and carefully detail the background of its sources, such as think tanks. I like Naomi Klein’s definition of think tanks, however. Paraphrasing her: “Think tanks are made up of people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks.”)
I suppose the alternative to Mr. Rangel’s solution to the awful impending crisis of the alternative minimum tax is to do nothing and let the CheneyBush tax cuts, aimed primarily to bolster Congressman Todd Akin, Republican-Plaza Frontenac and Jim Talent, his workout buddy at the local country club, and the rest of the super-rich stay in place, while our middle and working classes get the shaft! Wake up, America!