The Glade 4.0

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Summary for Youtube-at-work impaired?

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

DFK:

JFK: Tax cuts create jobs; increase revenue. Tax cuts don't increase the deficit; the worst thing for deficit creation is a recession.
Obama: This talk of tax cuts is old, failed policy. Tax cuts won't create jobs, or decrease the deficit; they'll increase the deficit by a trillion dollars.
Fact: Taxes were cut in '64. By '69 IRS revenue increased by 48% and 13.9 million jobs were added as compared to '63.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Hmmph.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

It's modern day pundits (George Stephanopolis and Chris Wallace) asking about the deficit, taxes and budget

JFK response from a 1963 speech:

"The soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now. And the reason is that only full employment can balance the budget and tax reduction can pave the way to that employment"

and so on and so forth with Obama saying things like these are old and failed ideas.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

Of course, the top marginal rate in 1963 was 91%, which the Kennedy cut reduced to 70% in 1964. Today's top rate is 35%.

Huh, thanks RD. Based on that I did a quick search.

I find it highly interesting that the "Golden Age" of America that most Conservatives use as an example of when America was the strongest and at it's best had the highest top martinal rate in the last 100 years.

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

Wow, that site calls itself Truth and Politics, then proceeds to post that piece of blatantly biased and uninformative drivel? Really?

That's kind just hilarious ...

In case your wondering, maximum taxes possibly paid during that period in the 50s ranged from 83 to 88% of 300k, and to pay 88% of 300k, you had to make a truckload.

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Read the footnote for those date ranges Khross. It was actually 87%.

That would "Golden Ages" based upon the previous period and the velocity of change from previous conditions.

Whats more, that would assume that the only changes in the tax code between then and now is the rate rate. That is hardly the case.

But, you might consider the increase in relative wealth and gains in employment/living at the points of the major tax cuts, such as 1964, 1982, and if you want to look outside of the US, Germany in the 40/50s.

Of course that top tax bracket was 91% over $400k. That would be equivalent to $2,841,434 today.
And, of course, the 70% tax rate was for incomes over $200,000, which would be equivalent to $1,397,728 today.
Finally, of course, the top tax rate is currently at an income of $373,650; which would have been $53,465 in '64.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

*chuckle* Touche.

Still, I think the basic point still stands - taxes were significantly higher across the board back then, which makes the side-by-side between Kennedy and Obama amusing, but not particularly revealing of anything.

RangerDave:

Except, they weren't ...

It's kind of amusing you forget payroll tax creep in this little discussion.

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Why do you need 91% of anyone's money? That's just disgusting.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

Except philosophical mindset.
Kennedy thought that lowering taxes would create jobs and increase revenue - and it did.
Obama thinks that raising taxes will increase revenue and job creation...

Oh, and of course, that the top tax rates in the time period we're discussion hit those making millions not tens of thousands, comparatively.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

That's what I mean, though - I don't think it reveals a different philosophical mindset. Kennedy thought lowering taxes from a top marginal rate of 91% would create jobs and increase revenue. Obama thinks raising taxes from a top marginal rate of 35% will do the same. It's apples to oranges, so we can't draw any conclusions about their respective mindsets based on the quotes involved. That said, it is pretty amazing how far to the right the Democratic party has moved in the last 50 years. Kennedy had a hard time convincing his caucus that his proposal for a 70% top rate wasn't too low; Obama's having a hard time convincing his caucus that his proposal for a 39% top rate isn't too high!

I haven't forgotten; it was just deeper into the weeds than I figured it was necessary to go. I am kind of curious, though, how the average effective tax rates at various income levels compare between that era and the contemporary one. Do you happen to know, off the top of your head?

/boggle

Heh. I figured that'd turn some heads.

I don't think Obama is having a hard time convincing his caucus that the tax rate is too low. I'm convinced that they'd take it all if they could - and still get elected. He's having a hard time convincing his caucus that they'll be in DC if they raise taxes.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

The thing that I think you can take away from JFK without even considering the rates in question (then, or now) is that Kennedy is arguing that cutting taxes leads to better employment.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Anyone that's making the equivalent of $3 million a year or more likely isn't making that in salary, it's coming from investment profit which means it's recorded as capital gains, not income. And if they do have a $3 million salary you bet your *** they'll take the compensation in stock options so they don't have to pay the income tax.

Kennedy also campaigned on a platform that argued Republicans were weak on defense. Amazing how times change.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Republicans were the party of not getting into wars back then because it was bad for liberty at home and it cost money.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

"Not getting into wars" has nothing to do with "weak on defense". The best way to not get into a war is to be stronger than any potential adversary. It's also a little bit irrelevant in the thinking of the late 50s/early 60s which assumed conventional war was essentially obsolete, and global thermonuclear war was the main threat. When an adversary can begin initiating multimegaton devices over your cities (even if its only a few of them) on a few hours' notice the concept of "not getting into wars" becomes pretty meaningless, as does concern over "liberties" or "cost". There was no arriving at an understanding with the Soviets at that time; even if we were light on defense spending they would still perceive us as a threat because the failures of Communism were still not all that apparent yet, and they'd been subject to two major invasions in the previous 50 years. Their view of themselves as exceedingly vulnerable was due to their experience, lack of technological progress, and world situation, and really had little to do with our actions.

Of course, JFK had to rely on a nonexistant "missile gap" but to be fair, it wasn't only him as no one realized how far behind the Soviets were on ballistic missiles despite their Sputnik success; even the most conservative estimates of their ICBM arsenal were well above the 4 working prototype R-7 missiles they had (SS-6; look it up, this missile was hilariously oversized and inefficient not to mention vulnerable to early destruction). Given the rate at which they actually did catch up, especially when the R-36 appeared in 1967 with 10+ warheads and a much higher throw weight than the Minuteman III, which carries only 3 warheads maximum.

Kennedy was right that Eisenhower was weak on defence, not because a gap existed (it did, but it was the other way around) but because one would rapidly develop in the next 5-10 years as the Soviets hurried to improve their inadequate delivery systems, and were further spurred on by the fact that they failed to establish an IRBM deterrent in Cuba. We compounded this by horrendous decisions regarding our own straegic arsenal which are reflected now in the fact that we're still flying bombers old enough that the crews' grandfathers may have flown them; strategic errors that continued well into the Carter and early Reagan administration. That era was marked by incredible strategic blunders on our part even disregarding involvement in Viet Nam. A better strategy 50 years ago would mean we probably wouldn't have had a 9/11 and two wars, and we'd have a cheaper, but equally or more powerful military that was more focused on operational offense in support of a strategically defensive posture rahter than running all over the world chasing down terrorists one or two at a time.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."