When did democrats give up on the idea of PROGRESSIVE taxation?

[Yollam]

We all see the headlines, for the last 25 years it has been non-stop "the rich get richer, poor get poorer" "Income gap growing into a chasm" etc. It was once a given that democrats, and many republicans believed that progressive taxation was a good way to help ameliorate some of the gross inequities of our corporate-controlled capitalist system.

But starting with Carter, who lowered capital gains tax from 29 to 28%, then accelerating with Reagan, who slashed income taxes on the rich, then continuing with Bush and Clinton, who did some minor tinkering, but continued with some of the lowest income tax rates on high-end earners in the 20th century, while shifting more and more of the tax burden to the poor and working people by forcing the states to raise regressive taxes like sales and excise taxes, and raising all kinds of government fees.


And now we have Bush slashing capital gains and other taxes on the rich, (but regular people can no longer deduct interest for a car purchase) and it goes on and on without abatement.

But almost every day I see some post on here calling for EVEN MORE regressive taxes! "Hey, let's have a VAT tax to fund health care! How about a tax on snacks!" ETC ETC.

Goddamn it, we need to raise the income tax on the super-rich back to 70% like it was in the 60's and our country had UNSURPASSED PROSPERITY! And tax corporate profits!

NOT ONE MORE REGRESSIVE TAX! NO MORE! PERIOD!

GAAAH!

[Donkeykick]

1. Amen!

Keep preaching brother; sooner or later someone in this country will listen!:wtf:

[punpirate]

2. No, Carter did not alter the top rate...

... it was Kennedy who proposed a drop from 91% to 70% in late 1962, which was enacted by Congress in 1963. That rate remained until the trickle-down tax cut proposals of the Reagan administration, in which the then-Democratic House was complicit. Legislation in 1981 and 1983 progressively reduced the top rate on the wealthy from 70% to 28%. There were similar moves to enable the effective tax rate of corporations to be drastically reduced around the same time.

My own feeling is that Democrats--always the losers in cumulative fundraising--felt that this would improve their campaign financing possibilities by putting more money in the hands of the people who financed campaigns. This, of course, backfired on them, because that money was put into the pockets of the people who both financed Republicans and who financed right-wing think tanks used to control the debate in the media and in government. Democrats, as a consequence, lost both their power and their voice.

[Yollam]

3. Well, he cut the capital gains rate...

...from 39 to 28%, and raised the income limit for the top bracket from $203K to $215K.

http://home.att.net/~Resurgence/TaxTimeline.htm#income

I misstated. But the fact is that the tax-cutting on the wealthy began BEFORE red-ink Reagan started to tear the government to ribbons.

[punpirate]

7. It's a matter of degree, I think...

... raising the income limit by that amount would be reasonable, given the inflation that existed at the time (which didn't begin to abate until there was an oil glut again in the early `80s). After all, the minimum alternative tax is now a threat to the middle class because of two-income families not having the income limit indexed to inflation.

As for the capital gains tax, there's always a mistaken belief on the part of politicians that such stimulus improves the economy. I think it promoted the Reagan-era types to demand even more. When the long-term capital gains rates went lower, that induced the greedy to demand lower and lower rates on short-term capital gains, which, to my mind, prompted the sort of speculation that resulted in the tech stock bubble.

But, you're right that Democrats were complicit in effectively destroying the progressive tax system, which, along with wartime-level defense spending, has resulted in almost three decades of deficits. When Carter left office in 1980, the total debt stood, after paying for the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War and the Army Act of 1901, WWI, the recovery effort from the Great Depression, WWII, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, at $980 billion dollars. That total debt is now over $8 trillion, and growing. It's directly due to two things--excessive defense spending and tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations. Democrats have been complicit in both.

[Yollam]

4. (sigh)

I suppose I could chalk the lack of interest in this thread to Alito, or taxation not being in the headlines, but I know better.

If this was thread was about abortion, people would be all over it.

:(

[sweetheart]

5. when they started with the drugs war

Teh drugs war being an obvious regressive tax on the rich
to destroy the lives of the poor. Just find the drugs war
and you'll have all the democratic regression you'll ever
not want to know about.

[Yollam]

6. Uh, okay.

:shrug: :yoiks:

[durablend]

8. When their corporate masters put them in their place

"Don't you DARE tax the life out of us or you can count on being the permanent minority forever"

Looks like that happened anyway...

[Yollam]

9. I can at least understand why to politicians do it...

...but DU posters advocating flat taxes, etc.? That just blows my freaking mind.