It was under Wilson, of course, that the first huge parts of the Marxist program, such as the progressive income tax, were incorporated into the American system.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The U.S. is the country that invented progressive taxation of income and of inherited wealth in the 1910s and '20s.
It was an absurd theory that by cutting taxes you would increase government revenues, because the growth of the economy would create an overflow of taxes that would fall into the government coffers.
The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.
In Michigan, a liberal democrat raised taxes and kept their government programs at the same level. And guess what? Their economy continued into the toilet, it continued down.
We had 90 percent taxes before in America. All right? Didn't work.
There certainly is a case to be made that taxes should be more progressive.
Progressive policies implemented since the early 1900s launched America into the modern age and created a vibrant middle class.
Reagan was president and had Democrats control the House and Senate, and they reformed the tax code. Clinton was president, and he had Newt Gingrich and Bob Dole; they reformed welfare and balanced the budget.
The Clinton tax increase - which was an increase in taxes primarily on upper-income people - not only made the tax code more nearly progressive, it preceded one of the most productive economic periods in American life.
Republicans in Congress boosted the economy by cutting taxes and ending programs that don't work.