Someone needs to bust the myth of
federal tax rate change = federal tax receipts change
I agree. Giving John Doe more money to run his business equals more workers, more purchases, and those equal more spending and more taxes.
Someone is all of us. Here is a way to do it, one mind at a time:
federal tax rate change = federal tax receipts change
While it's not entirely a myth, it's also not a simple one-to-one linear relationship. Tax rate changes do affect tax revenues.
At lower tax rates, a rate increase can increase tax revenue, but only up to a point. Above that point, a rate increase will definitely decrease tax revenue. Reagan (and Kennedy before him) demonstrated the first half of that relationship. Obama is bound and determined to implement the latter half.