Comparing Presidential Candidates Tax Plans

Recently, the Washington Post provided a chart of how the two major contenders for the U.S. Presidential election would stack up against each other with their respective tax plans, as shown here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...

The Washington Post chart has been re-drawn above (click here for larger view:
http://chartjunk.karmanaut.com/images/taxplans.pdf ) and overlaid with U.S. census information on median U.S. household incomes, as well those for the median male & female. It also attributes each area to the percentage of U.S. population that it will affect, which is interesting data to show.

The U.S. Census data puts things in perspective, showing the percentages of the population that the candidates' tax policy will affect. Those that re-drew this chart claim that the uppermost income bracket only contains approximately 1,000 people, while the lower brackets contain millions ergo their reasoning for the re-draw to scale.

As you can see, Obama's plan calls for more tax savings in the lower brackets, but this decrease is mostly offset by increasing taxes in the two highest income brackets. The net effect is almost neutral overall with an average cut of $160.

McCain plans to provide more tax breaks to the upper-end of the income levels. Overall, the tax rates for everyone will go down on an average of $1,195, according to the chart.

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This blog post by Chris Wathen was also published in his Linton, Indiana based Greene County Daily World blog entitled, "Riddle Me This".