Chuck and Savannah serve up a heap of steaming tax misinformation

[dorkulon]

Just a few minutes ago on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown," this was the 'trivia' question they went to break on:

"For a time, the top rate of income tax in this country rose to 77%. When was it?"

The answer, we're told, is 1918, when it was raised to help pay for WWI.

None of this is false, but it seems obvious that the average viewer would take away from this Q/A that this was the highest US income taxes ever got.

In fact, the top bracket paid over 90% income tax for 20 or so years, from 1944 on. Ironically, this is pretty much the exact stretch of time referred to by conservatives as 'the good old days'. All that revenue paid for huge infrastructure and public service improvements, and helped create that robust middle class we're now stomping the last vestiges of life from.

If you look at our tax rates from 1936 to 1982, there isn't a single year the top tax bracket doesn't pay over 70%. In fact, '64 is the first year the the top rate comes DOWN to 77%. (source: http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html EDITED TO ADD: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213)

Since almost nobody seems to know this anymore, it would be nice to have seen SOMEONE on TV refer to these facts, but I don't think I ever have. Instead, we get a piece of misleading information which seems to have been tailored to make us think the highest income tax has ever been was much lower, briefer, and longer ago, without technically lying.

This is the 'liberal' network?

[SpiralHawk]

1. Ahhh, the Good Old Days

Why are republicons such total stanky hypocrites about Ye Good Old Days?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. The Tax Foundation is a right wing org masquerading as a non-partisan.

I'm seeing their link popping up more and more. :freak:



eta: Not that the bracket info is false. It's their conclusions that are often disingenuous.

[dorkulon]

4. Here it is from Brookings:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=213

I've seen the numbers before. I suspected as much about something as ambiguously named as the "Tax Foundation," but that PDF embed looks like it's from the IRS.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

5. I noted that the #'s were accurate in my edit.

Just giving a heads-up on the TF.

[dorkulon]

6. Cool. nt

[FormerDittoHead]

3. Good catch. The wording is VERY suggestive. "77% is RIDICULOUS!!!!" n/t

[jwirr]

7. I don't think Chuck Todd is a liberal. I always take everything he says

with a grain of salt.

[toddwv]

8. Yeah. Seems like every time I turn MSNBC on during the day,

they have a Republican explaining why we need more tax cuts and less food, clothing and medicine for poor children.

Still no word on our ridiculously bloated "defense" spending which seems to always go up every year even though there are currently no credible threats to our sovereignty.