90% marginal rates

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Caller on local radio show today was asking the host why we don't go back to 90% marginal tax rates such as we had in 1950s when life was supposedly so splendid.

The host (a Paulestinian) argued that such things would destroy investment and no society ever taxed or spent its way to prosperity.

I keep hearing this "it's OK to take 90%" meme but I'm not sure what the mechanism is supposed to be.

But then the caller went on to rail that we need this to fund ObamaCare, welfare etc

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But we never had those things in the 1950s

[NHSparky]

And the income required to hit that marginal rate was so damn high that almost nobody had a taxable income of 90 percent.  (For the record, it was $400,000--equivalent to almost $3.6 million today.)  Today the current marginal rate of 35 percent is reached at an income of $311,950.

Furthermore, the "rich" had plenty of loopholes and shelters to squirrel their earnings away so as not to be counted as income.

Finally, WEALTH is NOT the same as INCOME.  When will the DUmmies figure that one out?

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

[JohnnyReb]

And the income required to hit that marginal rate was so damn high that almost nobody had a taxable income of 90 percent.  (For the record, it was $400,000--equivalent to almost $3.6 million today.)  Today the current marginal rate of 35 percent is reached at an income of $311,950.

Furthermore, the "rich" had plenty of loopholes and shelters to squirrel their earnings away so as not to be counted as income.

Finally, WEALTH is NOT the same as INCOME.  When will the DUmmies figure that one out?

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

You ain't telling me nothing I don't already know.

Net worth looks good on paper but right now it barely produces enough to pay the property taxes.

There are a lot of people in the same boat.

[DumbAss Tanker]

The 90% did start at a high level and was an artifact of paying for WW2, but as late as the early 80s the top rate was still 70% and thanks to inflation it bit people at much more modest income levels than the people who enacted it ever intended, but like AMT now, nobody had ever mustered the will to fix it.  The Beatles song "Taxman" - 'One for you, nineteen for me' or 95% - was not just hyperbole but related to UK income tax top marginal rates at the time.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

And the income required to hit that marginal rate was so damn high that almost nobody had a taxable income of 90 percent...

I'd be interested in data to see how many people fell within those brackets and how much revenue that netted.

Liberals seem fixated on raw numbers without any application. They'd rather tax 1 millionaire at 90% and reducing him to only $100,000 instead of taxing 50 men earning $100,000 at 20%. Case in point: Local radio moron David Sirota cries that he doesn't want people to talk about what % of GDP we spend on the military, he only wants to talk about the dollar amount and if that amount is higher than any other nation's (i.e. Luxembourg) we're spending too much.

We already have an idea as receipts have increased despite the fact top marginal rates have fallen even when adjusted for inflation. The part of the argument we're losing is when liberals say Bush's tax cuts cost us $1 trillion we cannot articulate that the money not spent on taxes goes into the economy as consumption and/or investment both of which leads to more economic activity, more wages and more revenue. We can say that all day until we are blue in the face but unless we can encapsulate key data points we will continue to cede the battlefield.

The mushy political middle can understand facts they just won't do the research.