Posted on 01/06/2013 8:41:21 AM PST by TurboZamboni
Of course, 2013 will be fine, because the 1950s sure were. That's the premise for the coming year, especially in regard to the agreement in Washington to raise U.S. tax rates on the well-off.
In the 1950s, after all, tax rates were far higher than what the House and Senate have agreed on, a top rate in the high 30 percent range. Back then, they were even higher than what President Barack Obama might have proposed, if left to his own counsel. Republicans in that era went along with the idea that high rates took something away from the rich and thereby stabilized society.
Republican President Dwight Eisenhower's idea of a significant marginal rate cut was to push the top rate down to 91 percent from 92 percent. Corporate taxes hit 50 percent. Jobs proliferated, wages rose, and the economy prospered. Lately, several documentaries have tried to capture the period, including "Something Ventured," about how the technology boom got its start.
The implications of this 1950s narrative are clear. High tax rates and the redistribution they might yield can stabilize us now, giving the economy "good directional stability," to use an industry phrase for a 1950s car, the Nash Metropolitan. High rates can accelerate growth.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
I love her. She’s a freaking genius.
Total tax burden, federal, state, local, individual and corporate is pretty much at an all-time high as a percent of GDP.
A 53 year old Flower Child Polyanna who knows nothing about the 50s from actually having lived it. Yet, she is so secure in the knowledge that high taxes didn’t hurt then and, ergo, won’t hurt now.
She cites all sorts of liberal screeders who regularly pen for liberal causes and concludes “we gonna be okay!”
Yes, taxes were high in the 50s, however, the government was not resident in business, didn’t own any, and didn’t hamper it - a very, very far cry from the wasteful ‘encouragement’ that some call payola for “Green Technology” or the outright effing of actual premium bond holders of commercial private enterprise (GM) to give it to Unions and holding the rest in stock in the Government’s name.
She should be ashamed of associating herself with anything related to any Bush (i.e., the 4 Percent Bush blah blah blah she hawks in her bio)
F@ck her.
YOU READ THE ARTICLE, part of it, but you didn’t unnah-stand it.
I read it all actually, a disconnected, yet wishful compendium of different thoughts, but all ending in the theme that “we were okay in the 50s” and “we’re gonna be okay in 2013”..
She’s a liberally educated wonk and writes regularly for Bloomberg News. That’s credential enough for me.
“we were okay in the 50s” and “we’re gonna be okay in 2013”..
I thought she concluded the exact opposite.
If she did, I couldn’t see it. It was the opening premise. Granted there were a million pop-ups and slow, disjointed loading, but I didn’t see it. I stand corrected if that isn’t the case.
In this article, the big government lapdogs are saying that 2013 will be like the 50s -- so we should be happy. But she pointed out 4 or 5 reasons why that is not so.
I’ll take your word for it.
Deficit spending, regulations and tax compliance costs all add to the burden yet remain unseen by statistics.
She wrote that rates were high in the 50s, but the highest rates were paid by only a few people and, more importantly, it was an era of declining taxes on income and capital. People were therefore optimistic about the future and would invest in businesses, leading to growth. She also makes the point that the world was flat on its back after WW II and the US could do whatever it wanted.
The current era is one of high tax rates that clobber everybody and we are faced with an endless horizon of increasing taxes. This makes everybody pessimistic about the future and results in slow or no growth. Furthermore, the US has to be competitive in a global economy that didn't exist in the 50s and our current tax rates are nowhere near competitive.
Read her book "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression" -- she is an excellent author and has her head screwed on straight regarding economics and the destructiveness of liberalism. As a previous poster said, "She is a genius."
I was interested to note that she is heading the "4% Project" at the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Looks like some interesting reading at that site.
Yep jobs were plentiful in the military, starting pay was $68.00 a month.
You sure picked the right FReeper name
Gee, thanks! (You didn’t)
Happens to all of us.
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