Currently most people earning less than $200,000 a year are suffering from what economists call financial "repression." These means there are factors operating that reduce the ability to save, we see it for most of us in low interest rates in bank accounts, CDs, etc. The process that the Fed and the EU central bank have used to achieve this is to lower interest rates to near zero and to produce so much "money" in the economy that liquidity is very high. This is presented to the public as a means of avoiding a collapse of banking and runaway deflation due to the credit crisis. How does the Fed do this? The main tool is to create credit in the form of debt, this is done with bonds and loans to banks. The banks get loans at 0% from the Fed and then buy Treasuries paying 2 to 4% interest. So the end result is not inflation but a controlled repression of savings (you cannot really make any money by putting it in the bank so you are "encouraged" to spend or to invest, ie, stock market). On the other hand, deflation is taking place in some assets, as in housing, destroying wealth, mainly of the Middle Class.
(the term, "financial repression" has been taken over by two economists and given a new and mistaken meaning see: http://www.freerepublic.com/.... In the 1930s Schumpeter in his Business Cycles, referred to this process as I have described, as did Keynes. Do not be fooled by the definition by Reinhart & Rogoff in their book, This Time is Different. This is an anti-government, libertarian, free market hijacking).
That is for the 95%. If you earn above $250,000 you can save and invest in bonds and dividend producing stocks. This money is then "conserved" in wealth management "private banks" or wealth management arms of large banks. The earnings can be balanced in loss potential by investing in currencies, commodities, hedge funds, EFTs or other means of hedging losses due to temporary changes in the market. Usually these earnings can be routed to off-shore entities of tax havens that protect earnings from national taxation of the home state of the owner. The result of this is to manage the wealth of the upper 5% so that they can keep their wealth and keep earning more.
How can this be changed? We could return to Eisenhower tax rates if we had a rational Congress, but that would only affect the massive wealth of the upper 5% if tax havens could be eliminated. The USA could do this unilaterally by simply not recognizing them and taxing people no matter where they lived or companies where they were headquartered. Present international discussions on this are going nowhere, but the Germans have shown with their treatment of Lichtenstein (they threatened to cut road, energy and food) that these tax cheats can be brought to justice. Brazil has laws now to "sterilize" the massive amounts of funds coming into the country from foreign hedge funds and private banks and dealers in instruments like EFTs by heavy tax penalties. They argue that the effects of this flood of cash is to drive up prices for the average Brazilian, this is not the reason, though as Brazilians are buying more and living beyond their means with import shooting up each year.
So it is unlikely that the electorate will act to elect a rational Congress since the 1% have the freedom to buy the election due to the We the People decision. So what can be done? The best we can do is to press each and every candidate about inequality and its corrosive effects on democracy, freedom and economic development. People need to be educated on this to answer the talking points of Republicans.