Below is a chart I made showing CPI inflation-adjusted tax bracket thresholds based on numbers from the Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History of The Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/151.html).

This chart just shows the taxable-income levels where one rate changed to the next. (Perhaps someone with better graphic presentation skills can get a better version). It doesn't show the rates themselves (go to the link above for the charts).

What I mainly wanted to show when I made this is how we treated income levels in the tax system in the past, which is a separate issue from what the rates actually were. For instance, during Obama's presidency there have been lots of arguments about raising taxes on income over $250,000 (often framed as "is $250 thousand/year 'rich'?&quot . In comparison, in 1955 there were 24 tax brackets (4 times as many as now). 16 of them, two-thirds of that number, affected taxable incomes over the equivalent of $250K. The highest bracket (the 91% one) affected income over ~$1.6million. OMG, Class Warfare! Socialism! Marxism!

And we know what sort of people were calling the president 'communist' back then. Birchers and other ranting cranks.

(in the non-colloquial sense of the word). Great work.

The only thing that's trickling down on that chart is revenue.

For all their faults and all their greatness, my parents generation seemed to elect much smarter congress persons than we do.


Fwiw, I am a latter stage baby boomer, born in '59



Edit; or perhaps these days, the smart ones just don't want to run for office. Instead, we get morons on science committees that think the earth is 9000 years old. And the rest of the civilized world looks on and scratches its head and says " how did those nimrods ever make it to the moon?"

For instance, back in their generation there were limits to how much you could toss around "socialism" and "marxist" when there were actual other countries to point to as counterexamples. Sure there were areas where it played well, but elsewhere you had to use circumlocutions like "slippery slope" or just look like a damn fool. Plus once the Russians launched Sputnik there was a big push for science education, and the the dogs and firehoses against civil rights demonstrators was perfect Soviet-propaganda-fodder for a newly-decolonialized world, so the sheer fact that it made us look bad helped push the federal government to supporting voting rights and desegregation.


Then there's the rise of television advertising in politics (and televangelism), and the fundraising incentives that developed. People were more likely to cough up some dough if you pushed their hot buttons, and conservative direct-mailers like Richard Viguerie had the expertise and resources to do it. They were intended to be divisive because the intent was to break up the New Deal coalition.

Pile on top of that wealthy interests and corporations following the strategies of the Powell Memo, investing in think tanks and media resources to provide a more Washington-friendly intellectual/technocratic veneer to conservative policies, thickening the fogbank

And that's just some of it.

:kick:

it depends on where the top marginal rate starts... and that will have a big impact on total income tax burden.

and this is directed at those who are charged it.