[drdec]

The first set of US federal tax rates when it was allowed by the 16th amendment with adjustments for inflation on the the right:

  Orig Income          Rate       Adj Income (2025 Dollars)
  Up to $20,000        1%         Up to $600,000
  $20,000 to $50,000   2%         $600,000 to $1,500,000
  $50,000 to $75,000   3%         $1,500,000 to $2,250,000
  $75,000 to $100,000  4%         $2,250,000 to $3,000,000
  Over $100,000        5%         Over $3,000,000

The point being that once you allow the tax, it has a tendency to become more and more. It's much easier to raise income tax than establish it.

I don't have a dog in this fight and if it's what the people of Washington want, so be it.

(edited for formatting

[pc86]

This is important context, and people forget that "taxation without representation," which started a war, was about a tax of about 1.5%.

Why is it when people are against a tax they typically talk about it in terms of historical context, unintended consequences, interstate migration, while people in favor of the tax almost exclusively appeal to emotional blackmail statements like "paying your fair share" (when something like 40% of the country pays no federal income tax whatsoever) or "good conscience" or assume anyone with any money got it through borderline illegal activities?

[mothballed]

It took 100+ years of horribly repressive policies to start that war, including far worse tax schemes including things like straight up requiring burning half your tobacco or only selling it through monopolized channels that required paying tariffs to England before it could be re-exported anywhere else. Policies that resulted in mass starvation and death, sometimes resulting in failed rebellions (like Bacon's). So there's history of Americans being willing to spend decades starving to death to pay high taxes or economically destructive policies before they will successfully rebel against it.

[pc86]

Well we're decades in at this point.