All Americans, including the rich, would be better off if top tax rates went back to Eisenhower-era

[grahamhgreen]

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6024430?utm_hp_ref=technology

All Americans, including the rich, would be better off if top tax rates went back to Eisenhower-era levels when the top federal income tax rate was 91 percent, according to a new working paper by Fabian Kindermann from the University of Bonn and Dirk Krueger from the University of Pennsylvania.

The top tax rate that makes all citizens, including the highest 1 percent of earners, the best off is “somewhere between 85 and 90 percent,” Krueger told The Huffington Post. Currently, the top rate of 39.6 percent is paid on income above $406,750 for individuals and $457,600 for couples.

Fewer than 1 percent of Americans, or about 1.3 million people, reach that top bracket.

Here is the conclusion from the report, charted:

[cer7711]

1. Damn Straight!

We know how to restore American prosperity to the broadest possible swath of the electorate:

1.) Return the tax code to its 1950s-era rates.
2.) Impose stiff tariffs on foreign goods that compete for market share with American-made goods.
3.) Strike down all "right to work for less" laws and pending legislation.
4.) Index the minimum wage (after immediately raising it to $15 an hour) to inflation and keep it there.
5.) Institute Medicare for all.
6.) Remove all taxes on food and medicine.
7.) Nationalize the banks.
8.) Nationalize all utilities.
9.) Abolish the Federal Reserve.
10.) Jail corrupt bankers and politicians to restore respect for the law and punish the oligarchs tearing this country apart.

If this wealth gap keeps increasing, revolution is inevitable.

[canoeist52]

3. Great list. Hope you don't mnd if I share it elsewhere.

For anyone who believes there are equally strident "far left" Democrats fighting against Republicans and causing the gridlock, name the members of Congress that are espousing these measures - was my heading.

[cer7711]

4. Please do!

It would be an honor and a privilege.

[grahamhgreen]

6. Great list!

[joeglow3]

7. Do you also allow 1950's deductions?

[grahamhgreen]

12. only the smart ones.

[snot]

2. The only reason we're in this place is 'cuz

a few .01% bottom feeders have been trying to loot all the others, and the rest of the 1% got scared/stupid they'd lose out if they didn't do the same.

[MisterP]

8. the 5% isn't immune from social-climbing aspirations either, especially since immense wealth

severely damages one's ability to think they have enough money, warps what "enough money" means (it's us poors who think money's to *buy* things), and is still not enough money to prevent having 90% of it wiped out--going from $5M a year to $500K is actually a very sharp shock for these people: it's not usually overweening greed, it's just how us mortals tick; so while the sight of a millionaire feeling themselves "precarious" is either hilarious or vomitous, money only buys happiness up to like lower upper middle class levels, then flattens out (which adds another psychological problem)

but as a class (and country) always on the climb they're always looking for new areas to invest, and we've been "fiscalizing" the economy since 1979: everything is measured in dollars and everything must become an investment and a revenue stream: houses get bigger, further away from anything, and they cover as much land in one decade as the "egalitarian" postwar burbs did in three (half the 2008 meltdown was subprimes (bundling), half McMansions (false triple-A ratings)), because land and houses are declared the 00s' "recession- and inflation-proof investment"; schools and pensions get dismembered with consequences that make us *beg the 80s corporate raiders to come back because they weren't half this bad*

[grahamhgreen]

11. Yup

[leeroysphitz]

5. I'm no financial analyst but I'm pretty sure The Rich disagree. Just sayin' n/t

[grahamhgreen]

9. Reminds me of the "I'm not a scientist, but" meme!!!

[woo me with science]

10. K&R