In any case, their point was not to argue that 1986 legislation was regressive (I admit to being wrong in construing it as such-thanks for the correction Max) but rather to argue that what was sold by Rostenkowski and Bradley as "giving back to middle income taxpayers the fairness they never thought would come" was doing nothing of the kind.
It remains completely unclear to me, looking at the numbers, why CTJ thinks otherwise, unless their standards for what constitutes "tax justice" are unconscionably low.
It is also unclear to me why liberals regard this legislation as a demonstration of Bradley's progressivism and a reason for supporting him at the expense of beginning to develop a viable third party alternative. (Unless cynical explanations having to do with obtaining access and personal advancement are really operative here.)
So what would it take, short of the candidate parading in a white sheet, for you guys to finally break ranks with the DLC dems?
>
> Here are the effective tax rates on all kinds of federal taxes, put
> together from various Congressional Budget Office documents from over
> the years.
>
> 1977 1984 1988 1993 1994
> quintiles
> - ---------
> poorest 8.9% 9.2% 8.9% 7.0% 5.0%
> 2 14.5% 15.0% 15.2% 15.0% 14.9%
> 3 19.0% 18.9% 19.4% 19.3% 19.5%
> 4 21.3% 21.4% 21.9% 22.1% 22.3%
> richest 27.2% 24.2% 25.6% 26.2% 27.9%
>
> top 5 percent 32.5% 25.4% 27.4% 27.4% 30.4%
> top 1 percent 39.2% 26.9% 29.3% 28.0% 33.2%
>
> all 22.8% 21.7% 22.7% 22.8% 23.7%
>
> ------------------------------
>
Doug, do you have any stuff on corporate tax rates?
Best,
John