>Only 60% of US households earn enough to pay federal income tax.

That's the problem. It's not a spending problem per se, but the market's misallocation of resources. Too many resources are concentrated in too few hands.

That's not to say we should abandon capitalism, but rather we should change the incentives to support higher incomes more broadly, as we did in the 1950s and 1960s. It's not a coincidence that deficit spending/public debt skyrocketed when we cut the top tax brackets. That changed the incentives from encouraging paying good wages and investing in business growth to hoarding capital and the financialization of everything.

Feel free to disagree, but the historical numbers support that.

tl;dr: change the incentives to broaden the distribution of resources across the economy, strengthening the economy (70% of which is consumer spending) and increasing, in a broad-based way, tax revenues.

I am doubtful here (but eager to see data that says otherwise)

- The US median per capita income is quite high (top 2 or 3 globally IIRC). In light of that and the stat that the bottom 40% don’t pay federal income tax makes me think the tax brackets are already fairly progressive vs thinking the lower 40% is especially low earning.

- Additionally income inequality has been decreasing in recent years with lower percentile income earners increases outpacing even the relatively high inflation.

- I agree we should revert back to some policies.

- I don’t think there is much hoarding of capital, most high earners invest heavily.