On January 31, 2019, Steve Almond writes on wbur.com:
Here’s a fun parlor game that you can try out the next time you’re chatting with your conservative relative(s): ask him or her when America was great. Chances are, the answer you’ll get is the one our president often cites: the post-World War II boom years.
This was an era of peace, economic prosperity, and, if you were a white male, unchallenged cultural hegemony. It was also a time when, as historian Trump explains, “we were not pushed around, we were respected by everybody, we had just won a war, we were pretty much doing what we had to do.”
Now comes the fun part of the parlor game: you get to ask your relative if they have any idea what tax rate the richest Americans paid during this era.
If they guess 25 percent, you get to say, “Higher!”
If they guess 50 percent, you get to say, “Higher!”
If they guess 75 percent, you get to say, “Higher!”
If they guess 90 percent, you get to say, “Higher!”
In fact, the tax rate on the richest Americans from 1951 to 1963 was 91 to 92 percent.
Crazy, right? President Dwight D. Eisenhower was a socialist!
Gary Reber Comments:
It appears to be in vogue to envy the rich, the small wealthy capital assets ownership class that owns the businesses the employ propertyless workers and who, with their access to capital credit, have developed the United States economy.
While I am certain that a higher progressive tax reform will be achieve as the swell of support forces law makers to up the tax rates in order to redistribute high-wage/salary earners and the earnings of the nation’s productive capital wealth, no politician or academician is advocating for broadening the ownership of new productive capital to be formed in the future (meaning now!) as a new source of income for EVERY child, woman, and man.
I believe there needs to be a serious focus on creating an Own The Future Deal, which empowers EVERY citizen to acquire overtime significant ownership stakes in the viable corporations and new startups growing the economy. This can be achieved using insured, interest-free capital credit to be specifically used for this purpose, without the requirement of past savings, and repayable strictly out of the future earnings of the investments.
Our political representatives and academicians should support the enactment of the proposed Capital Homestead Act (aka Economic Democracy Act and Economic Empowerment Act) at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/, http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/. And The Capital Homestead Act brochure, pdf print version at http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/C-CHAflyer_1018101.pdf and Capital Homestead Accounts at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ch-vehicles/capital-homestead-accounts-chas/