Yesterday, August 3, 2018, at Netroots Nation I attended the 1-2:15 session "Why the Fight Over Taxes is Central to the Progressive Movement -- and Why it's Not Over." The panelists were Chad Bolt, Anna Chu, Nicole Gill, Delvone Michael, and Felicia Wong according to the schedule and Rebecca Vallas was there, possibly replacing Ms Wong or Ms Chu. During the questions the moderator had to shut me up so others could ask questions, so I'll post the rest of my brain droppings here.
They bemoaned the way the right wing has gotten to frame the debate about taxes. I suggested we push the term 'bubble up' to counter 'trickle down'; as in a slogan "Tax cuts don't trickle down to the working folks, but raising the minimum wage does bubble up to lift the middle class."
Someone suggested raising the top tax bracket to 72%. The problem with income tax rates that high is that a dollar's worth of extra tax deduction becomes more valuable than two dollars worth of earned but taxable income. At a 90% tax rate, that ratio becomes ten to one. I think a better way to counteract the tendency for wealth to drain from the middle class to the very rich is a high estate tax. As to the framing of calling that a "death tax", I suggest calling it an inheritance tax and suggesting that Paris Hilton doesn't need more money. (Actually, "inheritance tax" is inaccurate; the accurate term is indeed estate tax. But let the other side split that hair. A true inheritance tax can be dodged by a large extended family by everyone leaving money to a lot of nephews and nieces rather than just to children. That's why we use an estate tax.)
The Trump folks have just floated the idea of indexing capital gains taxes to inflation. There would be a certain fairness to that, but I've always thought the only fair rationale for a lower tax on capital gains was to compensate for inflation. Up to recently, indexing would be an impossible bookkeeping nightmare. Now with computerized recording of stock market transactions it's possible. I'd suggest we agree to indexing BUT ONLY IF the capital gains tax rate were raised to equal the tax on 'earned' income.