A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America

by Bruce Cannon Gibney

Ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913 allowed for modern income taxation. Taxes started low and then rose substantially over the next thirty years. After World War II, the highest maximum rates reached 70–91 percent. Were Hillary Clinton to have proposed anything like this level of taxation—levels that prevailed under ur-Republicans Eisenhower and Nixon (both implicitly branded by Norquist as “socialists”)—the DNC would have been the first to rummage up any willing remnants of the Bush dynasty to replace her. The point of this context is not to demand a return to the era of 90 percent taxation, but simply to remind that in the context of present debates, rates of taxation are relatively low in nominal and other terms. Indeed, taxes are too low overall, insufficient to keep the government fully functioning or make essential investments for growth, at least not without major revisions to entitlement programs of which Boomers are and will continue to be the chief beneficiaries.