TLDR: Every billion dollars of personal income creates about 42,000 individuals with an income of 0. An 29% flat tax would have created a zero deficit budget in 2021, less in 2022. Adhering to the tax tables would have generated income instead of deficit.
I had asked AI to show the math on this, generated text is not allowed. So here is the math and source links, using the year 2021 instead.
1,000,000,000 divided by average household income ($70,784) so approximately 14 thousand households with zero income. multiply by an average family size of 3.3 (lets just call it 3)… 42,000 people making jack shit.
(2021) 23.32T income, 6.8T expenditures including mandatory and discretionary. 29% flat tax would have created zero deficit with everything paid for. in 2022 GDP increased 2T and spending stayed the same, so a smaller flat tax would have covered it. Adhering to the tax brackets for those years would have generated positive income.
If we replaced discretionary spending with free healthcare it would we could have done it with a 26% flat tax. 4T in total government spending spending + 4.3T for total healthcare cost – what we paid into it (1.6T)
https://taxfoundation.org/2021-tax-brackets/
https://taxfoundation.org/2022-tax-brackets/
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58268
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58890