Megan McArdle found that balancing the budget through taxes alone "means that everyone's taxes go up by about a third." Kevin Drum argues that's no big deal:
Page 65 of this CBO document provides estimates for how much income tax various people pay. The median family gets dinged for 3% of its income. A one-third increase means their income taxes would go up by….1% of their income. That's not so much.
How about a family with twice the median income? That is, someone who's pretty well off. They pay 13% of their income. A one-third increase means their taxes would go by 4% of their income. Again, this is far from catastrophic, especially since we're talking about an increase phasing in over the course of many years.
But reading Megan closely, I'm not sure she simply meant federal income taxes alone. Perhaps the debate will clarify this some more in the future.
The Dish 