Herein lies the center of one of the major fights in this race. McCain’s endless harping on Obama’s tax increases centers on people who make more that $603,402.00/year – who really are going to take a major hit under Obama. How does this sync with the Reagan tax-cuts in 1981? It’s interesting how hard it is to find the data from back then. Every article is a polemic like it’s still a hot debate and the actual figures are hard to come by. Here’s a table that has the gist of things:
This was almost 30 years ago and I don’t know how to compare these tables corrected for inflation, but the central thrust of Reagan’s tax cuts is pretty clear. The rationalization for these cuts reads like gibberish to me. You’re on your own there. But the result was that the heavily taxed wealthy were no longer heavily taxed. In the top brackets, the tax rate dropped from 70% to 28%.
The impact of Reagan’s tax cuts [along with his escalation of Military Spending] are well known to us all – repeated by George I and George II:
Besides the escalation of the National Debt [largely to other countries], this bizarre policy of cutting taxes [particularly for the wealthy] and increased spending has been accompanied by a massive accumulation of wealth in a small minority of American’s pockets:
Gini Coefficient: A measure of Income Inequality
It’s very hard to imagine why an informed populace would repeatedly elect the Reagan heirs. But the answer is pretty simple. We don’t have an informed populace.
As I read Obama’s tax proposal, he’s planning on reversing Reagan’s Folly [at last!]. I’m for it!
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