The US Democrats' tax plan: soak the rich

THERE'S no subtlety about Democrats' tax plans. Between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, details differ, but the central themes are identical: soak the rich. To hear Democrats tell it, the country's main budget problem is that the rich don't pay their "fair share". If they did, the fiscal outlook would brighten. We can now test this proposition, because the Clinton and Sanders tax proposals have been thoroughly analysed by the non-partisan Tax Policy Center (TPC).

To begin, it's worth noting that the rich, defined here as the "top one per cent", don't escape taxation. Some manipulate the system to minimise or eliminate taxes, but as a group,…