I don't get out much. I grocery-shop, mostly. But when I'm out and about, I tend to wear my Bernie 2016 t-shirt. Up until yesterday, I hadn't gotten any feedback, pro or con, from those few people I have met: sales clerks, selling me stuff. Yesterday an older white guy was ringing up my purchases. (Full disclosure: I, too, am an older white guy.) He asked me if I was ok with Bernie's idea to tax people at ninety per cent. "Bdea-bdea-wha?" says I. "Oh, you didn't know that?" He said. I could tell he thought that he was bursting my bubble. And that really appealed to him. I became annoyed.
I said, "If you are a billionaire, you may find that your taxes would go up. Otherwise, you'll be fine." I could have said more, been more pleasant. I have to work on that. I really do believe Sanders can connect with true conservatives, independents and non-voters. I'm counting on that. It means I have to connect better with those folks, too.
Meanwhile, I did a simple Internet search, and, yeah, Newsmax and everybody reported that Bernie Sanders is ok with a 90% tax rate. ThinkProgress unpacked that for me, based on Bernie's interview with John Harwood on CNBC, which was broadcast in late May.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
Harwood mentioned that one-percenters like Ken Langone and Tom Perkins equate efforts to fight wealth inequality with Nazi Germany. To which, Sanders derisively pointed out that at the time of the "radical, Socialist" President Dwight Eisenhower, the top marginal tax rate around ninety per cent. Somehow, we survived.
Sanders is right that the top marginal tax rate, that paid by the wealthiest Americans, was around 90 percent under Eisenhower — it was actually 92 percent in the 1950s. Today, the top marginal tax rate is 39.6 percent, although the richest 1 percent end up paying less than that on average and the average rate actually fell for many years.
Republicans have consistently claimed that higher tax rates on the wealthy will hold back economic growth, while lowering rates further will spur it forward.
But that’s not likely the case. Last year, economists found that the point at which the top tax rate is high enough to maximize government revenues but not so high that it discourages the rich from trying to earn more is quite high: about 95 percent for the 1 percent. History bears that out. Economists have pointed out that post-war American growth has been higher during periods with much higher top marginal tax rates and lower when tax rates were substantially lower. When the top rate was more than 90 percent in the 50s, economic growth averaged more than 4 percent a year. But recently when the top rate has been closer to 35 percent, growth has been less than 2 percent a year on average.
So, Berniecrats, Be On Look Out for the ninety-per-cent smear. Like any good smear, it has a basis in truth. You need not fear or flail like me. I will probably have to slog through Kevin Phillips'
Wealth and Democracy, and the Piketty book, before I feel confident in talking with folks about taxes. But this is dead easy. Trickle-down, Voodoo Economics has had way more than enough time to work. It doesn't, because folks who hire folks only do so when they need to. When middle class and poor people have money to spend.