7 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTS + (THOMAS JEFFERSON & FDR) WHO HAVE SUPPORTED AND ENACTED TAX “INCREASES” ON THE RICH

.

.

.

.

I’ve taken the following “excerpt” regarding U.S. Presidents (7 Republican Presidents + Thomas Jefferson + FDR) who supported and enacted higher taxes on the “rich” from an article written by Bruce Bartlett –  a Conservative Republican economist and the Midwife of Supply-Side Economics who was also a former advisor to both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

.

****************************************************************

.

By BRUCE BARTLETT, The Fiscal Times  —  October 7, 2011

.

“Historically, taxing the rich has been supported by both parties across the ideological spectrum.

.

Even Thomas Jefferson, whom many Tea Party members worship, supported higher taxes on the wealthy. In an 1811 letter to Thaddeus Kościuszko, he defended the tariff because it would force the rich to pay more. “The rich alone use imported articles,” Jefferson wrote, “and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. The poor man, who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, or within his own country, pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government.”

.

It was Republican Abraham Lincoln who created the first federal income tax to finance the Civil War.

.

And it was Republican William Howard Taft who helped enact the 16th Amendment to the Constitution to overcome constitutional objections to a permanent income tax.

.

And it was Republican Herbert Hoover who raised the top income tax rate from 24 percent to 63 percent in 1932 when the Great Depression decimated federal revenues.

.

Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to raise taxes on the rich in 1935 as a matter of equity in a time of economic suffering. In a message to Congress on June 19, he said, “People know that vast personal incomes come not only through the effort or ability or luck of those who receive them, but also because of the opportunities for advantage which government itself contributes. Therefore, the duty rests upon the government to restrict such incomes by very high taxes.”

.

In the 1950s, Republican Dwight Eisenhower fought his own party to keep the top tax rate over 90 percent, saying it was needed to help balance the budget.

.

Republican Richard Nixon signed into law the Tax Reform Act of 1969, which raised the capital gains tax rate from 25 percent to 35 percent and created a minimum tax to ensure that the rich could not escape taxation through the use of tax loopholes.

.

Republican Gerald Ford supported the Tax Reform Act of 1976, which raised the minimum tax and further restricted tax loopholes for the wealthy. On signing it into law, he said, “We are moving toward a tax system under which each taxpayer bears his or her fair share of the overall tax burden.”

.

Republican Ronald Reagan supported taxing capital gains as ordinary income – they are now taxed much less – and supported higher taxes on corporations. Defending his tax reform proposal in 1985, Reagan said:

.

We’re going to close the unproductive tax loopholes that have allowed some of the truly wealthy to avoid paying their fair share. In theory, some of those loopholes were understandable, but in practice they sometimes made it possible for millionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary, and that’s crazy. It’s time we stopped it….”

.

****************************************************************

.

How do you like them “Apples”, TEA-PARTY?

.

PETE/MARIN
(Riders-On-The-Storm)
https://paulrevererides.wordpress.com

.