The Conservative Case for the Progressive Income Tax

I support a low, simple, progressive income tax.

By low I mean I support reducing overall federal tax revenue.

By simple I mean I support abolishing the payroll tax, the personal income tax for the bottom 90% of the population, and taxing labor, investment, and inheritance at the same rate with no deductions, exemptions, or credits.

By progressive I mean I support proportionally graduating the income tax rate from the Top 10% to the Top 1%.

The tax should be high enough to be able to fund Social Security and Medicare ($1.7 trillion in 2019), but not much higher than the status quo because the Top 10% already pay 70% of income taxes ($1.2 trillion in 2019) so by simply taxing investment and inheritance at the same rate as labor this would generate more than enough revenue to exceed the gap.

Following these principles, let’s say this roughly translates into graduating the rate by 0.5% to a top rate of 7%.