Quote:
Originally Posted by Fast_Eddie
I'm not sure exactly what that chart shows. Except that taxes are historically low. Can you send it to the teabaggers?
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Yeah, I think that's about all it shows. Taxes are at their lowest point since the Great Depression.
A few other things I note is a really sharp rise in taxes during WWI, no doubt to pay for the war, followed by an equally sharp decline in the years leading up to the Depression.
Taxes then stayed very low and very flat through the worst years of the Depression and then quickly rose
as the economy began to recover. So much for the idea of taxes inhibiting growth.
Taxes rose to record levels for WWII. Then they dropped just as sharply during the Truman Administration only to rise again, to near record highs, under Ike.
Under Kennedy things stayed the same but under Johnson taxes dropped, flattened out and then rose again but not to anything approaching Eisenhower levels. Vietnam was expensive. Nixon lowered taxes back to Kennedy levels where they stayed through the Ford and Carter Administrations.
Then all Hell broke loose in the Reagan years.
Bush 41 restored the tax rate to something approaching sane levels. Clinton continued to increase taxes while ushering in a period of phenomenal growth in GDP and employment. Clinton's tax rate stabilized during his first term and stayed constant until Bush 43, during his first term, lowered them again but not to the levels during his father's administration.
Taxes have stayed the same since.
John