Sunday, August 31, 2014

Progressives Are On the Wrong Side of History

Progressives Are On the Wrong Side of History:

Burt Folsom:

On taxes, President Woodrow Wilson gave us the first progressive income tax. He and his progressive friends said raising tax rates would not hinder investments. But the year President Woodrow Wilson left office, the U.S. had a top tax rate of 73% and unemployment had skyrocketed to 12%. Because of high taxes, entrepreneurs refused to invest, the national debt spiraled upward, and the number of Americans reporting $300,000 in income declined from almost 1,300 in 1916 to fewer than 250 in 1921.
If you want more of something, subsidize it, and if you want less of something, tax it.

The American Left has been supporting, for a very long time now, higher taxes on the things that would make a civilized society go, and subsidies for the things that would bring it to a stop.