The true impact of McCain/Obama on personal income tax

By now, you've no doubt seen the ads by the McCain campaign stating that if Obama is elected your taxes are going to go up.  It turns out, the Washington Post analyzed the tax plans of the 2 campaigns back in June and your taxes will indeed go up if you make over $603,403/year.  For those making less than $111,000 you'll get a bigger tax break under Obama, from $111,000 to $226,000 about the same and from $226,000 to $603,000 you won't see any significant change in your taxes.  [start_sarcasm]Yeah, that's going to really hurt the middle class.  Oh, wait, the middle class goes up to $5,000,000/year, right?[end_sarcasm]  I have to admit, I didn't notice this story at the time, but Fred Anderson took note of it here (though he also got it elsewhere).  Oh, and you remember those temporary tax cuts in 2000 (2001?)?  That's where the increases come from, we just go back to where the tax rates on the top end of the scale were during the boom times of the late 90s.  They were a real drag on the economy, right?    I love the graphic, so I'm including it here, too.

That kind of reminds me of another graphic that Fred found that I thought was amusing (and unfortunately too true).