Finally, a Well-Executed Chart!
Political talk bores and fascinates me. Politicians have but one job: to convince voters. What they do to pursue that goal is boring (personal slams against opponents and the media frenzy and froth following same) and fascinating (policy discussions that actually get reported). Graphs can sometimes be a political tool, but for the most part they are slanted and difficult to understand.

Here is an exception.



Rather than simply give the breakdown on tax cuts/increases by income bracket, the author Karmanaut lengthened the brackets themselves to indicate how many actually fall into those brackets. This proves the joke in McCain's off-the-cuff estimate at the definition of "rich," since his $5 Million per year would be almost twice the income of the largest tax bracket categorized by the IRS, a group comprising only .1% of the population. It also shows the most likely source for Obama's support, his power base, folks with income between $111K and $161K. How else to explain that weird hourglass bulge near the top? I must say, it would be weird to make over $111.7K one year, lose under a grand of income and see your after tax take-home pay go way up the next year.

Oh, but do, do, do look very closely at that very skinny line at the top. See it stretch both left and right, indicating the fat cuts and increases provided to the very, very wealthy. That's a sharp distinction between the two camps.

As very cool and clear as this chart is, I would like to see more like it. How about a animated version tracking bracket percentage changes over the years? How about a similar one with lines demarking not just the shifting median average, but the more important modal average, the average that shows the income shared by the largest group in the country?

I'll have to check out this Chartjunk site more closely.