Alan Reynolds ("Memo to Robert Reich: Why 70% Tax Rates Won't Work," op-ed, June 16) distorts my proposal and ignores my argument. I proposed a top marginal income tax rate of 70% only on incomes of more than $15 million. Under my plan, incomes between $5 million and $15 million would be subjected to a 60% rate, and incomes between $500,000 and $5 million to a 50% rate. I further proposed substantial rate reductions for people with incomes under $100,000.

My argument, which Mr. Reynolds doesn't rebut: During the almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when the top rate was between 70% and 91%, average annual growth in the American economy was 3.7%. Between 1983 and the start of the "great recession," when the top rate ranged between 35% and 39%, average growth was 3%. The long-term slowdown is related to the fact that since the early 1980s a larger and larger share of total income has gone to the top (the richest 1% of Americans got 10% of total income in 1980, and get more than 20% now), leaving the vast middle class with insufficient purchasing power to boost the economy without eventually going deep into debt. Tax rates exacerbated the trend. Giving the middle class more purchasing power by lowering its rates while raising the rates at the top will help spur growth, to the benefit of all. Top earners will do better with a smaller share of a more rapidly growing economy than with a larger share of a slower-growing one.

Robert B. Reich

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy

University of California at Berkeley

Berkeley, Calif.