from http://www.alternet.org/workplace/66362/:

“Rangel’s plan earmarks enough money to roll back any AMT “surge” in 2007 — and raises that money by plugging the “carried interest” loophole that lets private equity and hedge fund managers annually avoid billions of dollars in taxes.

Under Rangel’s proposal, hedge fund kingpins would also have to start paying taxes on income they stash into offshore accounts.

The second piece of the Rangel plan– a piece that he won’t move for a vote until next year — would abolish the AMT outright. To offset the lost AMT revenue, Rangel is proposing a “surcharge” on high incomes, an additional 4 percent tax on incomes over $200,000 and an extra 4.6 percent on incomes over $500,000.

These surcharges would hike the top tax rate that affluent taxpayers pay on ordinary income to 39.6 percent and the top rate on dividends and long-term capital gains — the income from the sale of stocks and bonds, for instance — from 15 to 19.6 percent.

Families at the middle and lower end of the income ladder, in the meantime, would see their taxes fall under the Rangel plan, largely through an increase in the standard deduction.

The third piece of Rangel’s plan addresses corporate taxes. Rangel wants to slice the top corporate tax rate from 35 to 30.5 percent — and end the loopholes that, under current law, have lowered the actual average tax rate on corporate profits to the mid 20 percent range.

Will all these changes, taken together, leave the United States less unequal? To a limited extent, yes. Rangel’s changes would essentially offset most of the tax breaks for the rich that the Bush administration plopped into the tax code in 2001 and 2003.

But a straight undoing of these rich people-friendly tax cuts, a Brookings Institution report noted earlier this year, only negates about one sixth of the rise in U.S. inequality since 1979.

Rangel’s plan, in sum, amounts to a modest first step down the road to a more equitable United States. That could be good — because all great journeys start with single steps. But that could be bad as well, if lawmakers — and Presidential candidates — end up treating Rangel’s plan as the most, not the least, that could reasonably be achieved.

Your statement that “…For someone making $200K, the increased liability is $8K to $10K” is massively incorrect.
The correct info is that person’s taxes would be unchanged. To the extent that the individual makes in excess of $200K, that person’s marginal tax rate would increase by 4% for the first $300K, 4.6% for the income above $500K. For each $100,000 of income over $200,000 one would pay $4,000 additional in federal income taxes. In the case of your P/T boss his taxes might go up $4,000 ($300K-$200K =$100K x 4% =$4K), not $15,000. The $1M income person’s takes would increase by $31K, not $50K as you stated in your blog.

It is also instructive to note that these are approximately the same fed income tax rates as under the Clinton Administration, where the usual subjects predicted recession or even worse if these rates were approved. As you recall we had a fairly robust economy. The Wall Street weenies were wrong then and they are probably wrong now.

You might want to read up further on this or take some remedial algebra rather than repeating the usual right wing clap-trap. Also, I suggest we be kind to our kids; they’ll be paying back our deficit to the Chinese when they grow up and may be tempted to look at us geezers as expendible as our health care needs become too expensive!

In our home, it was understood that the children would move out after college. I actually moved out after my sophomore year. In our country it is becoming more and more common for adult children to stay home after college – although there is still a cultural antipathy toward it.

Moving adult children out of your house is (apparently) difficult because you basically aren’t really treating them like adults. Two of my siblings lived at home for several temporary years after graduating. Didn’t bother my dad, but probably wasn’t that good for them.