I agree the what comes back in taxes is a bit of hand-wave, it's hard to find stats on the average marginal tax rate. I think the non-elderly middle class net

I agree the what comes back in taxes is a bit of hand-wave, it's hard to find stats on the average marginal tax rate. I think the non-elderly middle class net effect will be close to if not a wash. They'll lose various tax deductions, but they'll get $11,700 x num_adults_in_household x (1 - marginal_tax_rate). And tax deductions only kick in when they are larger than the standard deduction to begin with. You need to be closer to the "upper middle" side of things to get there or have an unusually large deductions. I don't think you need to get the gap amount wholly out of new taxes, as I said I think you can get some of it out of reduced aid to states, and/or as suggested by the poster below, military spending cuts. As to your overall point, I concede that it is a tough sell.