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What you seem to overlook is the fact that America, at some point in time, decided on a Progressive Tax System in which one pays a larger percentage of one’s income as one earns more…
To some extent, that is what you describe, above.
You also show how that system has been amended and, basically, bastardized, in current times, with additions such as the Earned Income Credit. As you probably know, that plan inordinately gives a “tax rebate” (my own terminology), as opposed to a tax credit, to those with earnings, but whose incomes do not meet a determined mean level.
But you know all that. That is what you have described.
A reader, below, in responding to your comment, brought up the need for these tax amendments, due to the disproportionate ownership of resources and income by the few compared to the masses…
For many, those in the decreasing “middle class” , this system appears and feels to lack equity. Thus, the remnants of the 20th century working middle class feeling more and more squeezed by the tax code and a feeling of unfairness.
Understood. One might assume you fall in that category, based on your comments and resentment of the current system.
Being modestly informed of the macroeconomics at play, it would seem that the initial catalyst stems from the gradual erosion of middle class opportunity that has occurred in this country and probably globally since the golden age of the US economy in the 1960’s. “Plastics “. An iconic line from The Graduate. So prophetic.
Globalization became the go to for manufacturers. The least expensive labor has constantly been sought, moving operations from one third world country to the next, as those countries organized and demanded humane wages.
As a result, manufacturing has all but disappeared in the US, removing what were middle class jobs, providing incomes adequate to comfortably support one’s family on a single income and providing for employer paid health care and retirement.
The old tax code no longer functions.
The tax base that once existed from the middle class is no longer there.
With few exceptions, the middle class has shifted to the service jobs once held by high school kids in our day. Parents are supporting their families through two or more minimum wage unsecured jobs that provide no benefits.
Thus, the situation we now find ourselves in.
The patches and rushed amendments to the tax code are not equitable. Those who find themselves in the ever shrinking middle are crying foul.
Most understandable.
The increasing working class is being fingered by that middle class as being freeloaders, receiving more than they paid in. As your comment suggests, these workers must rely on a safety net just to survive. Thus, they receive compensation and benefits from the government in order to make ends meet. Compensation and benefits that once came in tandem with employment.
Ronald Reagan and his cronies were responsible for a great deal of this. Deregulation was a secret weapon to remove status quo guarantees to workers, allowing capitalists a free hand to remove pension plans, abolish unions and ship jobs overseas.
So, yes, our system is inequitable.
But to simply judge it at face value is naive.
Our system of economy, governance and providing for its constituents needs to be drastically overhauled.
A system in which all pay their fair share, thus eliminating the feeling of inequity, which also provides for the expectations of basic needs, as well as growth opportunities such as further education, is needed.
What that system looks like, I am not sure.
But feelings of resentment, due to apparent inequity, such as expressed in your comments must be addressed and satisfied by any new code.
Not unlike a Constitutional Congress, our tax code needs to be carefully overhauled, with input honored from all sides.
Our Jamestown, Judaio Christian work ethic, has instilled a pride in the feeling of contributing according to one’s means.
That factor is what your comment seems to point out as missing. I agree.
However, as detailed above, the foundation on which that ethic is based is missing.
A new vision is needed.

I have long contemplated a means in which national expenses were met, human needs were provided, and everyone contributed fairly and gained the feeling of contributing equally.

That is likely where socialist countries, like the original concepts in the formation of the Soviets and modern China, originated.

The last time I visited my family in England, my retired policeman uncle explained to me that every member of a household is required to pay a municipal tax, monthly – at that time, about $180 per month – to the State.
When I asked for what, he said, For the street lights and things.
Regardless of income, each resident paid this tax. There was a slight discount for pensioners.

There is dignity in such a system.

I don’t know the model that would work in the US, but a system in which everyone contributed would go a long way to dispelling feelings of being put upon by the middle class.

A progressive tax once fit this country. However, a plan in which housing, food, healthcare, complete K through Ph.D education, and utilities were provided, and everyone paid an equal percentage of income – eliminating credits and write offs, just straight, off the top – to a mutual fund, would be more engaging and remove poverty as well as resentment over inequity of taxes.

A project for posterity.