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Historical lessons of a tea party

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redeagle
Friday, March 4, 2011: 11:14 am
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First of all your statement that "they came to realize that taxes were needed to help civilization improve." is patently false on a couple of levels. There was this little thing going on in 1942 called the second World War that you may have read about. To protest taxes during a War for survival like that War was considered not only unpatriotic but unproductive and distracting from their core message. At a time when so many were making the ultimate human sacrifice for the cause, calling for government restraint in the areas of taxing and spending lost traction for obvious reasons. Also, to assert that taxes improve civilization is like saying regular beatings improves worker production. Yeah......I guess you could look at it that way.
I am sure the current Tea Party movement would gladly disband in exchange for our Federal government agreeing to return to 1940's levels of spending, regulating, and controlling the lives of American citizens as well.

nobodyimportant
Friday, March 4, 2011: 4:01 pm
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During the 1930's federal individual income taxes were never more than 1.4 percent of GNP. Corporate taxes were never more than 1.6 percent of GNP. In 1990 those same taxes as a percent of GNP were 8.77 and 1.99 respectively. You can easily see from this illustration that businesses skate on taxes compared to the working stiff.

Go back to 1942? Lets see if that's what you really would want.

In 1942 the lowest tax marginal rate for a married couple was 19% (on $2,000)and the top bracket was 69% (over $50,000) In 2011 the lowest rate is 10% and the top rate is 35%.

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