Oh, you want to talk about history but only the history you want to talk about. That's great, man. I love that you think I proved your point, showing your reading comprehension to be lacking. Yes, a progressive tax was proposed to fund the War of 1812 and one was implemented for the Civil War. But there were previous progressive taxes in Europe centuries before (you know, the place that almost every politician in the United States originated from). Not to mention, as I showed, the progressive tax was scrapped after the Civil War and switched to a flat tax. It was years later when the Progressive Tax was reimplemented because, as the politician said, "because none of us here have $4,000 incomes, and somebody else will have to pay the tax."
What exactly would you take his words to mean? You want to talk history, but you only want to talk about one instance of it. That's not history, that's you pointing at one time in history emphatically and expecting others to give a ****.
First, I would like to ask you how you made the excerpts from your references, which I found and read, have blocks around them in the post? If I could do that, it would save us both a ton of time. I tend to not post my entire reference material, because all I know how to do is copy and paste. Guess I'm a noob.
Secondly, the progressive tax was not implemented till later because at the time, we still had a very representative democracy. We had presidents who appointed justices based on real merits, rather than just having another person "on the same team" as themself, as it done today. Some excerpts from the links I posted for Catawba...
"One exception was during the Civil War, when a progressive income tax was first enacted. Interestingly, the tax had a maximum rate of 10 percent, and it was repealed in 1872. As Representative Justin Morrill of Vermont observed, “in this country we neither create nor tolerate any distinction of rank, race, or color, and should not tolerate anything else than entire equality in our taxes.”"
"When Congress passed another income tax in 1894—one that only hit the top 2 percent of wealth holders—the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional. Stephen Field, a veteran of 30 years on the Court, was outraged that Congress would pass a bill to tax a small voting bloc and exempt the larger group of voters. At age 77, Field not only repudiated Congress’s actions, he also penned a prophecy. A small progressive tax, he predicted, “will be but the stepping stone to others, larger and more sweeping, till our political contests will become a war of the poor against the rich.”"
Wow. He predicted class warfare. Now, it DID eventually pass, because, let's face it, SOMEONE has to pay the bills. And since no one ever seems to bother to explain to our rulers that one shouldn't spend more than they have TO spend, then taxes are always going to have to go up. The power to tax is the power to destroy.
And last, since you are fixated on what happened in Europe in the 14th century, fine, let's go there, shall we? Baring the little ice age, and the black plague, still not very good times for commoners in England. You forget to mention that the 500% tax on these dukes were not paid by the dukes, but by the people who work the duke's lands. Surely you've seen a Robin Hood movie or two? The vassals and lords owed their taxes to the crown, in the form of money and goods, and in order to pay it, they starved their own people. Not exactly a very supportive argument for the benevolence of the progressive taxation system.
