This actually explains a lot of our political development over the past 40 years. Completely agree that if you want to start a company and have a ton of $$$ you don't really care whether the top rate is 39.6% or 35%. 1/ https://twitter.com/mcuban/status/1313130690599432193

This is part of why we've seen upper class and upper middle class whites start to vote more on social issues. The economic debates just don't impact them as much any more. 2/

Contrast this with the debates we were having in 1980, when the top rate was 70% and brackets weren't indexed for inflation, so more and more people were getting pushed into higher rates. 3/

Like in 1980, an individual making $130k in today's dollars who got a raise would see half that raise going to taxes. That's a very nice salary, but it's also not the type of $$ where you can take advantage of all the avoidance schemes then available 4/

Especially before the passive loss deductions were reined in. In any event, one of the biggest questions in politics is whether the Ds can keep these UMC voters on board as the energy builds on the side of people who want tax rates more akin to what we saw in the 50s-70s. 5/

(and before you start, yes I know we survived very high tax rates in the 50s-70s. My point is I'm not sure the upper-middle class votes on social issues at that point. Also, we eliminated a *lot* of deductions people used to avoid those top rates from '81-'17).