Most people hate to pay taxes, so I've been wondering about the political history of the income tax. How did it come to be? Who wanted it and why? How did the 16th Amendment to the Constitution ever pass? I found a brief history of the income tax I'd like to share. It makes me ask why we're still burdened with the income tax even though the economic and social situation is so different now. I also notice how much the tax has increased, especially on the middle and working classes, and wonder if the goals of the movement that spawned the tax haven't been betrayed. Here's the history - "After the Civil War, the growing industrial and financial markets of the eastern United States generally prospered. But the farmers of the south and west suffered from low prices for their farm products, while they were forced to pay high prices for manufactured goods. Throughout the 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s, farmers formed such political organizations as the Grange, the Greenback Party, the National Farmers Alliance, and the Peoples (Populist) Party. All of these groups advocated many reforms (see the Interstate Commerce Act) considered radical for the times, including a graduated income tax. In 1894, as part of a high tariff bill, Congress enacted a 2-percent tax on income over $4,000. The tax was almost immediately struck down by a five-to-four decision of the Supreme Court, even though the Court had upheld the constitutionality of the Civil War tax as recently as 1881. Although farm organizations denounced the Courts decision as a prime example of the alliance of government and business against the farmer, a general return of prosperity around the turn of the century softened the demand for reform. Democratic Party Platforms under the leadership of three-time Presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, however, consistently included an income tax plank, and the progressive wing of the Republican Party also espoused the concept. In 1909 progressives in Congress again attached a provision for an income tax to a tariff bill. Conservatives, hoping to kill the idea for good, proposed a constitutional amendment enacting such a tax; they believed an amendment would never received ratification by three-fourths of the states. Much to their surprise, the amendment was ratified by one state legislature after another, and on February 25, 1913, with the certification by Secretary of State Philander C. Knox, the 16th amendment took effect. Yet in 1913, due to generous exemptions and deductions, less than 1 percent of the population paid income taxes at the rate of only 1 percent of net income."
So What ? Nothing new to this history buff. The only problem I see is when Income Tax is applied "repressively" as has steadily occurred with bipartisan, RepubloCratic support since the great tax relief of JFK who called himself an anti New Dealer. Among the "dumb(*)(*)(*)(*)" voters are those who vote for candidates calling for "tax cuts" never understanding whose cuts they are. Progressive taxation should be about the equality of pain paying ones tax, not an equal membership fee. So BRAVO Progressive. Too bad they hardly exist today. Moi A Progressive Government protects people from Affluenza sufferers. No
Explanation required, Moi, especially for the majority who are not history buffs. Are you saying JFK's tax cuts were or were not "repressive"? What is a "repressive" tax? Not obvious. What's your objection to tax cuts? Those who pay no tax obviously can get no cut. But when the middle class gets a cut, it means much more to them than the same percentage cut for a rich person, because the money they get to keep goes toward high priorities, not savings or luxuries. The Bush tax cuts, on which Dems expended a decade of vituperation, started at $43,500, so they were arguably regressive - benefiting the middle class far more than the rich. The rich might have saved millions, but that meant less to them than the hundreds the middle class got. So how do you define a "repressive" tax cut? You suggest that pain should be equal, regardless of income. "Pain" is an unquantifiable emotion. The same percent rate, or the same dollar amount, may mean different things to different people, so there's no way to use "pain." Your suggestion sounds like a way to conceal envious and malicious intentions toward the rich. In the name of equalizing "pain," you intend to hand out a disproportionate and unfair amount of pain to the rich. That's a mainstay of left politics - telling most people that they can live high and easy on money the government seizes for them from the rich, and telling them that the rich deserve it, should any honest people feel guilty about participating in theft. Your message is that we can feel good about stealing from the rich because only then can they feel our "pain." But how can people living on the proceeds of theft claim to be feeling pain? In truth, you want to heap all the pain on the rich, and that's hardly equality. Of course, the left's program is self-punishing. Wherever it's been tried - the Soviet Union, China, etc. - the sources of wealth have been destroyed, leaving behind a nation of thieves in pain because there's nothing left for them to steal. P.S. Since you're rich yourself, do you propose revising the law to "liberate" the money in your pension fund so you can feel the pain of others?
Without Income Tax, how would the right-wingers afford to make endless war in the Middle East? Romney promised to attack Iran, and the conservatives and neoconservatives were disappointed when Putin threw cold water on the U.S. plan to bomb Syria by convincing ally, Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad to destroy his chemical weapons. The only satisfaction the warmongering right-wingers still have is the U.S. war in Afghanistan. Additionally, where would the government get the tens of billions of dollars to dole out as subsides for Big Business? Given the bills this country must pay to assure the rich keep getting richer, an income tax is an absolute necessity.
Oh how you love playing "word games". Progressive, we have agreed before I should qualify it with, in the historical sense, so you do know. Progressive vs Regressive tax, you also understand quite well. I stand by historical definitions. It has nothing to do with China or Russia. Rockefeller remained Rockefeller after the Progressive movement. True ? And the Chinese or Russian Rockefeller did not. So please don't address "Moi" with your plethora of word games. Nor bore other members on Board Moi Hey Membership. If you get what I'm saying to Mr. Bobov, hit me with a "Like". Help Bobov see the light. I bet he comes back with a denial he is playing word games. PM betting interests. And No
Thumbs down and tongue sticking out. No accident that a progressive income tax was one of Marx's ten goals in the Communist Manifesto.
