Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is floating a 70 percent top tax rate — here’s the research that backs her up
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This is a long, but excellent, article from Vox describing in detail where AOC’s proposed 70% top tax rate comes from, why it would have a positive impact on our society as a whole, and why it may not actually be high enough:
In an interview scheduled to air Sunday on 60 Minutes, America’s most widely covered new House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) floats the idea of a top marginal income tax rate as high as 70 percent as part of a plan to finance a “Green New Deal” that would aim to drastically curb America’s carbon dioxide emissions.
This is not a formal policy proposal. Indeed, the whole idea of offsetting the budgetary cost of decarbonization with taxes is somewhat at odds with the main currents of thought in the Green New Deal universe, which lean more toward the idea that deficits don’t matter and the costs shouldn’t be paid for at all.
Seventy percent is a lot higher than the current rate and will doubtless fuel the conservative effort to paint AOC as a know-nothing, but the number is in line with one prominent strain of recent economics research and is at least moderately well supported by America’s historical experience.
Historically, the United States used to have many more tax brackets, and the top marginal tax rates were extremely high. Under Eisenhower, the top earners paid a 91 percent marginal rate, falling to Ocasio-Cortez’s proposed 70 percent under Kennedy and Johnson, before falling to 50 percent after Ronald Reagan’s first big tax cut, and then down to 38 percent after the 1986 tax reform.
Never let your morals stop you from doing the right thing.--Isaac Asimov
The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.--Julius Nyerere
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January 5, 2019 at 2:00 PM #8819
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January 5, 2019 at 5:49 PM #8871
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January 12, 2019 at 6:18 PM #11668
I hope this is the article on the internet today because I do not know how to post it if not. Talks about the reaction to her suggestion by other Ds. Most were positive or at least interested. But I had to LOL at this one: Rep. Bill Pascrell D-NJ said “he is worried about us ‘sending signals that we’re just going to go after people who have a few dollars’.
I am afraid someone should tell him that it is those with few dollars who have been paying the cost of governing since raygun was elected. What we want to change is that everyone pay their fair share. No more ultra-wealthy who pay nothing to the cause. And I do not think 70% is too much until we get these stupid undeclared wars paid for and get our country back on its feet. That was the attitude when I was a kid and I want to see that attitude for our children.
jwirr
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January 12, 2019 at 8:07 PM #11716
It was those “with a few dollars” who started this political class war. Time for them to reap the political whirlwind.
Never let your morals stop you from doing the right thing.--Isaac Asimov
The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.--Julius Nyerere
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January 12, 2019 at 9:07 PM #11738
But..but…what will the rich have left over to trickle down to the poor?
The comfort of the rich relies on an abundance of the poor. Voltaire
Tell me, great captain, how do the angels sleep when the devil leaves his porch light on? Tom Waites
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