As the Population Doubled, Tax Rates have Declined

Since the Bush Tax cuts and two wars, and then later with the economic collapse in 2008, we've had mass unemployment and lower property values. So it's no wonder we now have a budget crisis and a revenue problem, but not necessarily a "spending problem".

Today we have some of the lowest tax rates in U.S. history, yet the Republicans and Tea Party have kept falsely claiming otherwise, saying we are over-taxed...when just the opposite is true. (Historical Tax Rates on the Rich from 1862 to 2011)

More people (with a natural population growth) makes for "bigger government", and why a fair balance of taxation and necessary domestic spending is needed to maintain programs like Social Security and Medicare, while maintaining what's necessary for the defense of the country. But it's in the defense industry where we have the most fraud, corruption and waste.

However, while government (people) continues to grow, corporate tax rates, the capital gains tax rates, and the top income tax rates have been steadily in decline for decades.

But rather than raise the tax rates, or cut anything in defense spending, the Republicans want to cut and privatize programs that we paid all our lives into, such as Social Security and Medicare.

If we just taxed people on their annuities, trust funds, gifts, dividends, estates (generation-skipping), and capital gains on stock trades as REGULAR INCOME according their top marginal federal income tax brackets, wouldn't that be fair? (How the 1% bilks the 99%)

Because of the many loopholes in the U.S. tax code, on average, the largest U.S. multi-national corporations and banks already pay a lower effective tax rate in corporate taxes (14% to 18%) than they would in China (25%). It's not over-regulation or taxes that keeps businesses from hiring, they just don't have to.

And shouldn't we tax Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton their fair share? (Gift Taxes on the Fabulously Rich)

In 1950 we had a population of 152,271,417 with a top corporate tax rate rising to 52%. The top marginal rate for income was 91% and capital gains was taxed at 25%. (Tax rates during the Fabulous Fifties)

In 1977 capital gains on stocks (etc) was taxed at 49% (Historical Tax Rates on the Rich from 1862 to 2011), now it's only 15%.

Today in 2011 we have a population of 312,827,260 (double from 60 years ago). Corporations are paying an average "effective" tax rate of less than half they than did in 1950. (Low Wages Kills Jobs, Not High Taxes).

Historical Corporate Tax Rates: From 1969 (the highest) to the Present (near lowest)
Year/s	Tax Rate
1969	52.8%
1970	49.2%
1971 - 1978	48%
1979 - 1986	46%
1987	40%
1988 - 1992	34%
1993 - 2011	35%

Currently the top marginal rate for "regular" income is 35% (before deductions) and capital gains is taxed historically low at 15% (Capital gains is where the top 1% earns most of their income).

The GOP and Tea Party wants "smaller government". Do they mean they want less people?

Year	U.S. Population (Size of government)	Tax Rates (Not including estate and gift tax rates)
1913	97,225,000	The Revenue Act of 1913 - The Tariff Act imposed the federal income tax following the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment. Less than 1% of the population paid federal income tax at the time. From 1913 to 1921 capital gains were taxed as ordinary income until 1922.
1922	110,049,000	The top marginal rate on individuals fell from 73 to 58% by 1922, but preferential treatment for capital gains was introduced at a rate of 12.5 percent (and was never this low again until the Bust tax cuts in 2003).
1950	152,271,417	The Revenue Act of 1950 increased the top corporate rate to 45%. The Korean War induced Congress to re-impose an excess profits tax, effective from July 1950 to December 1953. The tax rate was 30% of excess profits with the top corporate tax rate rising to 47%, then later to 52%. Top marginal was 91% and capital gains was 25%
1964	191,888,791	The Revenue Act of 1964 - Reduced top marginal rate from 91% to 70%, reduced corporate tax rate from 52% to 48%.
1978	222,584,545	The Revenue Act of 1978 reduced individual income taxes, reducing corporate tax rates (the top rate falling from 48% to 46%), effectively reducing the rate of taxation on realized capital gains to 28%.
1986	240,132,887	The Tax Reform Act of 1986 - The top tax rate was lowered from 50% to 28% while the bottom rate was raised from 11% to 15%. Capital gains rates were 28%.
1997	267,743,595	The Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997 - The top capital gains rate fell from 28% to 20%.
2011	312,827, 260	George W. Bush tax cuts since 2001 and 2003 - The top corporate and top marginal tax rate is now 35%. Capital gains is only a mere15%.

My Related Posts:

• Subsidies for the Rich and Famous
• The Second Gilded Age: History Repeats Itself
• Mellon: The Banker Who Rigged the U.S. Tax Code
• The GOP Tax Plan - Ignorance, Insanity, or Greed?
• We have a Revenue Problem, Not A Spending Problem
• 280 Corporations are "Too Big to Tax"
• Trickle-Down Economics: The Cruel 30-Year Hoax
• You Pay Hidden Entitlements for the Rich
• Record Profits + Record Bonuses = Zero Jobs
• Low Wages Kills Jobs, Not High Taxes

Other Related Articles

• "The richest 1 percent have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined."
• The total net worth on the Forbes 400 List marks $1.5 Trillion in 2011
• The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion
• Historical Tax Rates and Time-line
• Capital gains from Citizens for Tax Justice
• 1977 - 2007 tax rates from U.S. Treasury
• Economic Policy Institute on capital gains taxes
• Capital gains explained from U.S. Internal Revenue Service
• The great corporate tax scam

They Got Theirs, The Working-Class Got Jacked

Recently Deborah L Purdom on an unemployed Facebook page had took note and made mention - "It is so sad to notice that, as time goes on, we have lost more and more of the original members of this page, and unfortunately, have gained more new ones. I sometimes wonder what happened to the 'first' members and how they are faring. I hope they are managing to survive somehow! Bless them all!"

I would tell her: It's probably all part of the government's plan to eliminate a huge chunk of the middle-aged working-class. Gradually reducing the numbers, incrementally shoving them into poverty (or worse), until they all just fade into obscurity (or die). A leaner and meaner economy, but with a reduced workforce and less tax revenue going in to the treasury (and because of tax cuts extended for the rich). Most programs for the poor will be eliminated first before any goodies for the rich will ever have to suffer.

The politicians cater to American corporations, and they in turn cater to their "emerging markets" overseas. 15 million Americans were sacrificed to further enrich the very few. All the complaining in the world will do nothing for the unemployed. No meaningful laws will ever be enacted to protect American workers and consumers. If anything, just window dressing will be applied to assuage and assure the other 80% of the population who's still gainfully employed - and they will be told that everything that can be done for the jobless, is being done.

It takes 50% of the population to be disenfranchised enough before true revolution breaks out, but the government and America corporations carefully maintain a well-planned balance in this ratio to prevent this "tipping point" from ever occurring. American consumers and workers aren't high on the list for corporate profiteers - American corporations don't feel any sense of honor, patriotism, or responsibility to this country. They are strictly profit-driven with no "human" connection at all.

The politicians are the same way...I can hear them now, "I got mine!" America has been a ME society for a very long time, and everyone who can, will, step over a corpse to make an extra dollar in revenue. Greed prevails, and all their talk about "family values" and "moral principals" is nothing more than the usual BS.

It's not just the federal government that's going broke, the States are too. Nobody has any money except for the rich people (and those in China) and they're not paying any more into the State and federal kitty, nor are they creating jobs for Americans. We can't outsource teacher's, firefighter's, and policemen's jobs overseas; but if WE aren't working, then we can't pay their salaries either. When State and federal jobs are all eliminated, who's left paying taxes - what's left in the treasury to pay THEM unemployment benefits? The downward spiral. We can't even afford to pay the salaries to the people working in the unemployment offices!

Home foreclosures haven't even peaked yet and most home prices are still underwater. If you're rich, it's a great buyer's market, sweeping up all those nice homes for pennies on the dollar from the banks (who wouldn't refinance). I can see a vast number of private homes being permanently rented. We might see many of them turning into multi-family housing units like the old mansions of yesteryear.

"Uncertainty" has been the GOP's and the wealthiest excuse for not hiring before they got their tax cuts extended late last year, but they still aren't hiring. Most of the jobs that were permanently lost were all lost while they had those very tax cuts since 2001. Yet the GOP complains about the deficit, and that's why we're going broke. House leader John Boehner on Meet the Press today was blaming the "federal government" going back 40 years for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but aren't people like he and the GOP part of this federal government?

The politicians and the corporate profiteers want to blame everybody else but themselves for destroying middle America, and instead of working on solutions, they just continue to allow what collapsed the economy in the first place...while playing the useless blame game. The Vice President tells the unemployed in "hang in there" as they lost their life's savings, their homes, and their cars. What's left to hang on to when everything else is gone, including hope Mister VP?

How does someone who lost their car and now barely subsists on food stamps get back into the job market when jobs are finally (if ever) created? I can't even buy a new shirt or pair of shoes for work if I needed to. I buy items like shaving cream with money I get from my DONATE button on this blog. And I'm one of the lucky ones!

Recently the fed chief Ben Bernanke said it could take up to 4 to 5 [more] years before we ever see a "normal" unemployment rate of 6% again (NOTE: It USED to be 5%, so the bar has been lowered by the feds). But how can even 5% be considered "normal" when ours was only 4% not too long ago (just like China's is today). And the way the government has been manipulating the unemployment numbers for the past two years, a "normal" unemployment rate of 6% in 2016 could very well be a REAL unemployment rate of 10% (it's most likely about 13% today, not 9% as the government boasts).

Smoke and mirrors, lies, and more BS is all we've been getting from the politicians, bankers, and CEOs. They got theirs, and to them, that's all that matters. American citizens, to them, are just a necessary nuisance for them. They would prefer not to have to deal with all our complaining, and to just keep socking away more cash in the bank...because if the dollar loses any more value, and if prices go up much more, those rich pigs might need a wheel-barrel full of cash just to buy a damn loaf of bread. And the unemployed (who got NADA) will be fighting each other just to feed off their crumbs.

This time last year I said it was going to get a lot worse before it got any better. And today I'll say it again. This slaughter of the middle-class isn't near over, not when we still have millions of people who are still dependent of unemployment benefits - their only source of income that will expire in 12 short months. Even if another 14 weeks were ever added, it only delays the inevitable.

And I agree with Deborah - I hope "the lost ones" are managing to survive somehow too.