People who hate taxes and hate government must hate roads and schools and libraries and police and courts, not to mention certified foods and medicines and a whole host of other hallmarks of a civilized society today. The issue is not whither taxes, but whither unfair taxes.
From the 1930s until the 1980s, the United States had a progressive tax system that did a mildly good job of undoing the vast shift toward income and wealth inequality of the late 19th century through the 1920s. Under that great red revolutionary, Dwight David Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate was 92%.
So why does the political marketplace of ideas accept as dogma that anything worse than Reagan and Bush rates of 28% and 35% are sacrosanct? Why should there be just three rates topping at little more than a third, when the revenue they produce simply fails to pay for a good health care and retirement system for all (not to mention the odd war our country must somehow always be fighting)?
Given that 20% of the people own 80% of the nation's assets, shouldn't they who are more able, contribute substantially more to a society that has made their riches possible?
These are rhetorical questions. President Obama (how nice that still sounds ...!) is being overly timid in suggesting that rates merely return to President Clinton's 39.6%. That's not how a changed America will come about.
(By popular acclaim, I am returning to my clarifications concerning the revolutionary agenda I proposed, which I admit was never my wholly original idea. In the next few posts I shall be attempting to review the points in greater detail.)
