Grenartia wrote:1. But Ike did nothing to change them, implying agreement and support. I should also mention he was the first president to warn us about the military industrial complex (and yes, he arguably did contribute to its power, however, had he not, we'd have lost MAD, which, I reluctantly admit, kept us from a nuclear war, if only barely).
2. And yet the government still had plenty of money to spend on guns and bombs and rockets and spaceflight and computers and pure research.
3. I don't agree with that, but there were enough positives to Kennedy's administration that I cannot think of a bad thing to say about the man's politics. I like to think had he not been assassinated by that traitor (to both the country and the proletariat) Oswald, he would have found a way to avoid escalation in Vietnam.
1.) Obama hasn't done anything to stop the human rights violations in North Korea, but that doesn't mean he agrees or supports them, does it? Not taking an active role in ceasing something ongoing does not mean you agree with it.
2.) That does absolutely nothing to address my point in the least.
3.) You support Ike, yet you do realize the entire situation in Vietnam came from his administration's placement of Ngo Dinh Diem as a fradulent, oppressive, cronyist, and generally terrible puppet dictator in South Vietnam in 1955.
Back to point 2: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241 ... 1554982808
rue enough, the top marginal income-tax rate in the 1950s was much higher than today's top rate of 35%—but the share of income paid by the wealthiest Americans has essentially remained flat since then.
In 1958, the top 3% of taxpayers earned 14.7% of all adjusted gross income and paid 29.2% of all federal income taxes. In 2010, the top 3% earned 27.2% of adjusted gross income and their share of all federal taxes rose proportionally, to 51%.
So if the top marginal tax rate has fallen to 35% from 91%, how in the world has the tax burden on the wealthy remained roughly the same? Two factors are responsible. Lower- and middle-income workers now bear a significantly lighter burden than in the past. And the confiscatory top marginal rates of the 1950s were essentially symbolic—very few actually paid them. In reality the vast majority of top earners faced lower effective rates than they do today.
In 1958, an 81% marginal tax rate applied to incomes above $140,000, and the 91% rate kicked in at $400,000 for couples. These figures are in unadjusted 1958 dollars and correspond today to nominal income levels that are about eight times higher. That year, according to Internal Revenue Service records, about 10,000 of the nation's 45.6 million tax filers had income that was taxed at 81% or higher. The number is an estimate and is inexact because the IRS tables list the number of tax filers by income ranges, not precisely by the number who paid at the 81% rate.
The changes came about not so much by movements in rates but by the addition of tax credits for the poor and the elimination of exemptions for the wealthy. In 1958, even the lowest-tier filers, which included everyone making up to $5,000 annually, were subjected to an effective 20% rate. Today, almost half of all tax filers have no income-tax liability whatsoever, and many "taxpayers" actually get a net refund from the government. Those nostalgic for 1950s-era "tax fairness" should bear this in mind.
The tax code of the 1950s allowed upper-income Americans to take exemptions and deductions that are unheard of today. Tax shelters were widespread, and not just for the superrich. The working wealthy—including doctors, lawyers, business owners and executives—were versed in the art of creating losses to lower their tax exposure.
For instance, a doctor who earned $50,000 through his medical practice could reduce his taxable income to zero with $50,000 in paper losses or depreciation from property he owned through a real-estate investment partnership. Huge numbers of professionals signed up for all kinds of money-losing schemes. Today, a corresponding doctor earning $500,000 can deduct a maximum of $3,000 from his taxable income, no matter how large the loss.
Those 1950s gambits lowered tax liabilities but dissuaded individuals from engaging in the more beneficial activities of increasing their incomes and expanding their businesses. As a result, they were a net drag on the economy. When Ronald Reagan finally lowered rates in the 1980s, he did so in exchange for scrapping uneconomical deductions. When business owners stopped trying to figure out how to lose money, the economy boomed.
