No Paradigms

 Perspective

Taxes - Model the Eisenhower Era?

I was reading a post earlier that there is a possibility of a "per mile" tax on automobiles to fund the 3.5 billion Infrastructure Plan.

I checked it out and its truly a possibility.

I am outraged by this. That another burden is placed upon the Middle Class who already pay the most overall in taxes. Especially when the Federal gas tax was created by Eisenhower to fund the creation and maintenance of the Highway Infrastructure system. I wonder - is all that money going to that now?

BUT there should also be OUTRAGE that the rich aren't paying their fair share in taxes. we should look to the Eisenhower period as a model.

During the Eisenhower administration (1953 to 1961) the top income bracket in the United States climbed to a marginal tax rate of 91 percent. Taxes on corporate profits were 2.5 times as great as they are in 2020, and that’s before the current proposal to cut that rate to 21 percent. The tax on large estates rose to more than 70 percent. Businesses operated under a relatively high tax burden, and they employed a labor force in which one-third of the workers were unionized and bargained with executives as equals. Corporations served a diversity of stakeholders as opposed to stockholders. The result was a booming economy that benefited most Americans.

In 1955, Fortune magazine noted approvingly that the incomes of the top 0.01 percent of Americans were less than half what they had been in the late 1920s, and their share of total income was down by 75 percent. In the 1950s, the average corporate CEO received 20 times more compensation than the firm’s typical employee; by 2020, CEOs’ salaries averaged more than 200 to 300 times those of the average worker.

We should all write our representatives (House & Senate) and share this information and DEMAND:

1] no per mile tax

2] Where is the federal gas tax money going?

3] Why aren't the rich paying their fair share or at least the proposed 15% absolute minimum tax on the 1 percenters?

I am writing my letter tonight and I ask all of you to do the same.

The American infrastructure built over 70 years ago is outdated and crumbling and there is other money than the middle class to fix it.

I am not asking for Socialism but a fair and non-greedy Capitalism of the 1950's.