Dollar thresholds would help, even though they are hard to express. The problem with the way we do our tax system is that a cut for the lower quintiles also helps the upper quintiles. Of course, if you raised taxes on the fourth quintile, it would also raise taxes on the top. What exactly would negating the Bush and Obama tax cuts on the 4th quintile look like in terms of rates? When carried through as higher taxes on the top quintile, what would the impact be? Most importantly, what would this do to the deficit? Much of the analysis that has been floated on the Obama hike on the wealthy come to the conclusion that the tax changes proposed are almost revenue neutral - confirming your result. How do we make them revenue positive? What if the 10% rate were phased out at higher incomes, so that all income in that bracket were taxed at the 15% rate for higher income taxpayers? Are we talking a few hundred dollars - in essence chump change? Is it still chump change in the larger economy? What would the top tax rate have to be to duplicate the effect of negating the 10% rate change for these taxpayers? .1%? You've got the numbers, let us know!