PCF's premiere political correspondent live tweets SOTU

[Dylan]

[Philly]

[The dane]

There's not going to be any bargaining. The GOP doesn't want to compromise, and Obama is signalling very clearly that he is not just going to roll over. The SOTU was about the 2016 elections, not about governing until then. That's not necessarily a bad thing either, Obama could still do a lot of good by shaping the political debate, even if the results only come after he leaves office.

Also, I find it funny that almost noone is actually arguing against the specifics of what Obama proposed. People are mostly saying things like "it won't get passed" or "why is he only proposing it now" or "he should work more with the Republicans". The reason is that his proposals would clearly have the support of most Americans, and they would benefit most Americans as well.

[Southern Dad]

[Dylan]

[Professor]

At some point, he said something about raising taxes.

So, got a question. All this talk about the "top 1%" got me thinking. This graph

http://www.teachablemoment.org/images/i ... ty2012.png

shows that the top 1% are those making more than $1.1m per year. However, the top income tax bracket is reserved for anyone making >$406k/yr. I can agree with raising taxes for some of the higher earners (say, >$250k). But, why not create a "Top 1%" tax bracket where all income (yes, all - capital gains included) for that top 1% is taxed at something much higher. How high?

Well, I wanted to see a chart that showed both the income tax brackets over history AND the corresponding income levels of those highest brackets. I couldn't find a nice chart, so I made one.



Basically, we've gone from a LOT of tax brackets, where the top earners made a LOT of money and were taxed a LOT but there were very few of them, to a system where there are few brackets and the top earners make decent money and there are a lot of them.

Based upon the above, why not:
- eliminate capital gains exceptions and make those taxable income
- keep current rates static
- add 2 more tax brackets on top of the current ceiling (39.6% at $405k): a) $405k-$1m taxed at 50%; above $1m taxed at 60%

[Southern Dad]

[Aaron]

[The dane]

[Southern Dad]