I don't understand how you're having a problem with this. Looking at a good year (I chose 2005) we had $2.1 trillion in federal revenue (http://www.usgovernmen

I don't understand how you're having a problem with this. Looking at a good year (I chose 2005) we had $2.1 trillion in federal revenue (http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2005USbn_12bs1n_F0#usgs302 http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/year_revenue_2005USbn_12b...) If we managed to increase that by 40% that would generate an extra $840 billion per year. (Keep in mind that's massively generous because that would mean a 40% increase in everyone's taxes not just the top earners) The total debt right now is $14.7 trillion. Even the most conservative CBO estimates had us adding $700 billion per year to the debt (usdebtclock.org) and those were very conservative estimates. So your 40% increase doesn't even deal with the deficit. Much less the debt or the unfunded liabilities. And that's assuming you could get that. My original point was people will subvert the tax code when tax rates get high enough to justify accountants and lawyers to do so. That's why a 90% tax rate didn't produce dramatically more revenue per capita.