General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The “Fiscal Cliff” Hoax [View all]davidn3600
(6,342 posts)Killing the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000 only raises revenue by roughly $60 billion a year. That's a drop in the bucket and really insignificant. To make any difference, the taxes need to be much, much higher than that.
Notice on that graph, how fast the debt after WWII was repaid during the Truman and Eisenhower period. Tax rates were in the 70% range for the top earners. People had jobs and were paid a livable wage. Unions were strong. And America was a creditor nation. We were building infrastructure and progressing quickly.
We don't have any of that today. The tax rates are at the bottom and we are spending money on stupid crap. And the trade deficit didn't exist back then. We were making things IN America that other countries wanted to buy.
That's the difference between the 1940s and now. And it's why our debt situation today is much more toxic than it was back then.
Today the biggest problem is inflation. The wealth disparity will continue to increase when we continue to flood the money supply without there being any real economic growth or revenue coming in. These new low-wage jobs that we keep celebrating with each job report is completely worthless to our economy. Minimum wage jobs do not help us, they hurt. Because people no longer can work a job and bring home enough money to live on.