Speaking of the middle class, a good friend a hard working Republican (with a good middle class job paying him $200,000 in his last years before retirement) did not realize that retiring at his age, he had to take a certain amount of money out of his 401K each year and pay ordinary income tax on it. He could not leave it in his account until he needed it and he had no way to stop the conversion of the capital gains in the 401K into ordinary income even though he earned them through risk and capital gain from careful investing. His brother on the other hand has been able to shelter money and convert a lot to capital gains though deferred participation in partnerships, and other devices available to him. So he and his brother took comparable risks, but the tax law favored his higher bracket brother much better. Until this hit him personally, he did not realize how big a deal this was and how much things were stacked against him even at his level.