House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) unveiled legislation on Thursday to rearrange the tax code, granting tax relief to 90 million Americans while shifting the burden onto top earners, including managers of private equity and hedge funds.

“For too long, hardworking families have struggled to keep pace with the rising cost of living in America,” Rangel said. “This legislation would put money back in their pockets to combat the growing economic insecurity gripping our nation.”

The legislation would raise taxes on individuals and married couples earning at least $150,000 and $200,000, respectively, in order to permanently shield middle-class taxpayers from the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) and pay for an increase in the refundable child tax credit, the standard deduction and the enhanced earned income tax credit.

It would also cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 30.5 percent, while doing away with some widely used business tax breaks, and raise taxes on private equity and hedge fund managers.

The tax package is revenue-neutral, cutting more than a trillion dollars in taxes, but raising an equivalent sum through tax increases.

Rangel expects to pull a one-year AMT patch, along with language to extend a number of expiring popular corporate provisions, from the legislation for passage this year.

The New York Democrat wants to pay for those provisions with the tax hike on the private equity industry and legislation to prevent hedge fund managers and wealthy executives from deferring compensation in offshore tax havens. That could set up a confrontation with Senate Democrats, who have signaled they want to waive pay-as-you-go budget rules in order to patch the AMT.

“I’m anxious to talk with the senators, but I can’t talk with them if they say they’re not paying for it,” he said.

Republicans immediately derided the plan as a recipe for wrecking the economy and a political misstep that would work in their favor. “You know, very seldom in politics do your opponents give you this kind of gift,” Rep. Roy Blunt (Mo.), the second-ranking House Republican, said.

“Frankly, you have to wonder — you have to wonder whether his plan is even going to be taken seriously by his own members,” Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), a member of the Republican leadership, said.

Rep. Jim McCrery (La.), the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, praised Rangel for putting forth a plan, but said it was flawed because the chairman is “constrained by the straitjacket that the Democratic rules have put him in.”

McCrery said that Rangel’s plan rests on compliance with his party’s pay-as you-go budget rules, which require any tax cuts to be neutral with regards to the budget baseline from the Congressional Budget Office. That baseline assumes the expiration of the Bush tax cuts.