a letter from Norm Luther:
The call for a bit more vertical equity in the tax system has been met with cries of “Class Warfare”. That seems an extreme over-reaction to President Obama’s plan to only raise the top federal income tax bracket rate from 35% back to the 39.6% of the Clinton era. Contrast that to Franklin Roosevelt raising it from 25% to 63% upon taking office in 1933, to 79% in 1936 and finally to 90% while dealing with the Great Depression. The top rate remained near 90% through the Eisenhower Republican administration and stayed at 70% or above on through the Republican administrations of Nixon and Ford until the Reagan administration drastically lowered it during the 1980s.
From this perspective President Obama’s ambitious program of change would simply move us to the center of the political spectrum, not nearly as far left as during the majority of the 20th century under both Republican and Democrat administrations.
