[adventured]

Except there's very little data supporting that claim. Quite the opposite in fact.

- The middle class has continued to get richer for about 40 years, moving up rather than down. That move up has caused the middle class to contract.

- US household assets are up by $27 trillion since the peak in 2006/2007. For comparison sake, that gain alone is equivalent to 2/3 of all the wealth in the EU.

- US household balance sheets have improved dramatically in the last six years. The household debt to income ratio has declined by a lot, home equity has continued to climb. This contrasts with most of the rest of the developed world, in which households have been rapidly accumulating vast amounts of debt (mostly on mortgage debt accumulation).

- Full-time job openings are near record highs.

- Full-time job employment is at a record high.

- Unemployment has plunged dramatically since the peak of the great recession, including on the U6. The U6 is back to a normal level for the last 30 years, and is back to where it was before the great recession.

- The labor force participation rate is finally climbing again. The majority of the losses suffered there were from retirement anyway.

- Wages have been growing modestly well for the last two years, after enough slack was removed from the labor pool.

- Manufacturing is near an all-time record high on output.

- US median net wealth is higher than Germany or Sweden.

- US median disposable incomes are the highest in the world outside of Switzerland.

- US GDP per capita is back to being #5 in the world (soon to be twice that of Japan by comparison, and ~40% higher than Germany), which is rather extraordinary given the issues the nation just went through.

Where's the evidence to support this inbound great collapse? The sole issue that stands out meaningfully is the national debt. That's only going to get easier to manage as rates on debt fall over the next several years. The US has vast spare taxing capacity that very few developed nations have, the US middle and upper-middle class is among the lowest taxed out of that group; the US rich could easily be taxed several points higher without it significantly impacting the economy.

[tsunamifury]

I pay nearly 48% tax to state federal and city, and it does significant damage for my ability to grow in the Bay Area. There is no room to be taxed more, in fact the tax rate here hinders the middle and upper middle class from saving effectively for a down payment, doing actual damage to the region.

[webXL]

Oh, believe me, there's room to be taxed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/24/how-y... ;)

Some people look at that map and think "look at all that income just being disposed of! Just think of what governments could do with all that cash!"

[SilasX]

Those people are wrong, and there isn't room: tax revenues has been roughly constant across enormously varying [1] rates. An increase in rates will scare marginal workers (people near retirement, moonlighters, the lower-earning member of a couple) off the labor market, and direct more efforts into reclassifying consumption as a business expense, canceling much of the increase in revenues, while leaving significant economic waste in its wake.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauser%27s_law

[harryh]

I don't believe you. Your marginal tax rate might be 48%, but I would be shocked if your average rate was that high even living in a very high tax area of the US.

I live in NYC (also a very high tax location) and have a pretty decent income and my rate for 2015 was just over 40%. That includes Fed, State, City, FICA & tax preparation costs.

[SilasX]

Unfortunately, decisions are made at the margin[1], so high marginal rates cause extreme distortions and "deadweight loss"[2] -- i.e., a loss of X dollars' worth that corresponds to less than X dollars of gain for the government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marginalism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadweight_loss

[harryh]

I certainly agree that marginal rates are important. I'm just saying that it's important to understand the difference between marginal rate and average rate and not use one where you mean the other.

[SilasX]

Okay, but to invoke the cliche: When people confuse marginal and average tax rates, they're wrong. When people miscalculate their taxes, they're wrong.

But when you trivialize the damage of high marginal taxes because the average rate is lower, you're wronger than both of them put together.

Also, I think your NYC numbers are still wrong since they seem to leave out sales tax. I know that for SF, a typical tech worker's state/federal taxes would be about 40%, and when you throw in the 10% sales tax health mandates, it's right about 45%.

[harryh]

I wasn't trivializing the damage of high marginal tax rates.

Also ya, I left out sales tax (I don't have any precise records on my yearly sales tax expenditures. I suppose I could estimate). I also left out the employer side of FICA which is really a tax I'm paying. I also left out the % of my rent that goes to pay my landlord's property tax. I also left out corporate taxes I'm responsible for as an owner of stock in various public companies.

Truly calculating the total taxes that fall on me as an individual is probably impossible at some level. So I included the taxes that people commonly refer to when talking about "paying their taxes."

[louprado]

At least you have mobility in the U.S. as a means to reduce your tax liability. By simply moving 250 miles east, your rate would drop to ~35%. Many people leave California for this reason while others feel the extra 9-13% is worth it.

[dragonwriter]

> I pay nearly 48% tax to state federal and city, and it does significant damage for my ability to grow in the Bay Area.

Its possible to reach that total tax rate, though even if you manage to have no dependents or other sources of deductions, credits, etc., it takes a lot of income, even for the Bay Area (like, the kind where you could, after those taxes, meet reasonable living expenses and buy a new Bay Area home, without selling the last one, for cash every decade or so.)

> There is no room to be taxed more

The maximum combined federal, state, and city taxes on income (including income and payroll taxes at all levels) in San Francisco is lower than the maximum federal income tax alone in the period of the US most rapid aggregate growth (and also the most rapid relative growth of the middle class.)

[ams6110]

During that time there were many more tax shelters. Even interest on personal debt like car loans was deductible.

[venomsnake]

It is expensive to be unmarried, well earning and human in the US (I think that tax rate is almost impossible to achieve for a family). I recommend you to become a corporation ...

[humanrebar]

It's actually less expensive; it's just the payoff happens when other people's children start paying for future social security, medicare, and medicaid checks.

[rayiner]

> It is expensive to be unmarried . . . I think that tax rate is almost impossible to achieve for a family

When household income is above $150k, married couples with roughly equal incomes to each other will pay more in taxes than if they were single. That is because the tax brackets for married couples are wider than for singles, but not twice as wide.

[tanderson92]

Here is an interesting paper on Taxation and marriage: "Taxation and Marriage: A Reappraisal"

> Marriage taxation presents a "trilemma": An income

> tax cannot simultaneously maintain progressive

> marginal tax rates, an equal tax burden for all married

> couples with identical incomes ("couples equity"),

> and neutrality with respect to the tax burden of

> married versus unmarried couples ("marriage

> neutrality").

Much more interesting discussion: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic...

[JauntTrooper]

The US debt-to-GDP ratio is 104%, which is high by historic standards, but no cause for alarm. Japan is at 226%, the UK is at 88%, Germany is at 75%, and China is at 41%.

Last year, interest payments on the national debt were 6% of our budget and only 1.3% of GDP -- a near record low.

And the US only has to pay interest of 2.2% a year on 30-year bonds. If average inflation over the next 30 years is greater than 2.2%, then the US will actual gain money in real terms for every dollar it borrows.

As you stated, the US has ample ability to service its debt; the 2011 S&P debt downgrade was due to questions on Congress' willingness to pay it.

[Kinnard]

You're talking about national accounting, I'm talking about a crumbling city . . .