Taxing the rich - what is the cutoff?

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by onlydarksets

True, but it also doesn't account for student loans, which can exceed $100k easily for law/medical school. That can add an extra $15k-20k/year.

If you have at most one kid in daycare and no student loans, I agree.

If you have young kids requiring daycare and student loans, this budget goes out the window, and the 3% is going to be felt.

Your budget is a useful discussion point, but you haven't proved the $250k cutoff is optimal.

I still agree that it is affordable, though. The point of the article (and one that I agree with and I think you agree with) is that Obama has labeled this income bracket as "wealthy", which is not likely true for most of the demographic. That's fine to increase it 3% now, but it's not a well you can keep going back to.

Major student loans definitely throw a wrench in the works. But few have to rack up the kind of debt that SGG did. Usually, you either get grants or aid, or go to a state school in college to keep the debt lower in undergrad. Law school or med school will undoubtedly be expensive.

As for kids in daycare, I still maintain that there are so few people making $250K who also have 2 or more kids in daycare that it's not even worth discussing. Not too many late 20s/early 30 somethings make that much money, it takes a while to work up to $250K for most folks.