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After the Republican Great Depression, FDR put this nation back to work, in part by raising taxes on income above $3 to $4 million a year (in today’s dollars) to 91 percent, and corporate taxes to over 50% of profits. The revenue from those income taxes built dams, roads, bridges, sewers, water systems, schools, hospitals, train stations, railways, an interstate highway system, and airports. It educated a generation returning from World War II. It acted as a cap on the rare but occasional obsessively greedy person taking so much out of the economy that it impoverished the rest of us.
I mean hold on a second. I'm all for taxing the rich and corporations more than they currently are being taxed, but 91%??? 50% of profits???
I'm not sure if anyone is suggesting that we push for levels like that again, but it simply isn't realistic.....
We need a flat tax with no loopholes that can be easily adjusted as we find our country needing more or less. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but in general that's what I'd like to see.
Did you read the whole article? Hartmann is talking about the very rich.
"But the rich fought back, and won big-time in 1980 when Reagan, until then the fringe “Voodoo economics” candidate who was heading into the election trailing far behind Jimmy Carter, was swept into the White House on a wave of public concern of the Iranians taking US hostages. Reagan promptly cut income taxes on the very rich from 70% down to 27%. Corporate tax rates were also cut so severely that they went from representing over 33% of total federal tax receipts in 1951 to less than 9% in 1983 (they’re still in that neighborhood, the lowest in the industrialized world)."
Do you think that what Very Rich pays now is fair? Do you think the corporate tax rate is fair?
While republicans are naming everything in this country after Regan, why di they fail to mention this.
"The result was devastating. Our government was suddenly so badly awash in red ink that Reagan doubled the tax paid only by people earning less than $40,000/year (FICA), and then began borrowing from the huge surplus this new tax was accumulating in the Social Security Trust Fund. Even with that, Reagan had to borrow more money in his 8 years than the sum total of all presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter combined."
Funny his policies hurt America so bad, yet he was elected and re-elected by unprecedented electoral margins. I love reading revisionist stories that try to undo or redo things to support or attack a political figure. It always makes for a good laugh.
As we have recently seen, the mere facts of election and even re-election are not exactly reliable barometers to go by. The facts, while a bit loosely stated in this piece, are essentially correct...
We need a flat tax with no loopholes that can be easily adjusted as we find our country needing more or less. Yes, that's an oversimplification, but in general that's what I'd like to see.
A flat tax is simply a way to shift tax burden down the income ladder. These schemes look simple...they sound plausible...only the well-to-do actually benefit from any of them. Adjustability could be accomplished via a permanent surtax, the rate for which would be annually revised...either above or below zero. I wonder if reaction to the Bushie tax cuts would have been any different if people had seen such a surtax send them a rebate of 12% in 2000, and instead a bill for an extra 22% in 2004...
A flat tax is simply a way to shift tax burden down the income ladder. These schemes look simple...they sound plausible...only the well-to-do actually benefit from any of them. Adjustability could be accomplished via a permanent surtax, the rate for which would be annually revised...either above or below zero. I wonder if reaction to the Bushie tax cuts would have been any different if people had seen such a surtax send them a rebate of 12% in 2000, and instead a bill for an extra 22% in 2004...
I cry bullcrap.... So the less you make the less % of your cash you need to throw into the kitty??? Nah, sorry.... 25% is 25%. If you make $20K a year you're paying in $5K, if you make $250K you'e paying in $50K.
Care to tell me without loopholes how this benefits the rich??? They're paying their share. Pure, simply, period.
I don't believe in extra-punishing people monetarily for making more money. And no, I'm not rich.
Originally Posted by the morons at commondreams.org
It's been said that dreams are our roadmaps to the future. If so, where are we headed? Common Dreams is a national non-profit citizens' organization working to bring [SIZE=2]progressive Americans[/SIZE] together to promote progressive visions for America's future.
any time this word is used in a mission statement they're far left/socialist/communist/all the above..
not really even worth debating the subject as far as I'm concerned..
the only people that would support this BS are the dirt poor and the people that for some stupid reason enjoy giving the government money.. I luckily am not a member of either of those two and the thought of giving this congress 91% of my EARNED income is rubbish..
then again I'm not socialist/communist and I don't think everyone should be equal.. I do believe Russia is heading back in that direction,though, so I'd highly suggest people move there so they can live in the Utopia of failure, again...
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