If you simultaneously got rid of all the deductions, loopholes, etc and made it a true flat tax on all income, then it might work out that the effective rate of a flat tax policy could be more progressive than the results of our "progressive" tax policy.

I would be interested in seeing what values of ax+b (a being the rate and b being the standard [+ perhaps only] deduction) would work out to be income neutral to our current convoluted algorithm.