Tax Day is here and while protests are taking place all over the country, we would do well to realize that April 15, 2010 may be something to celebrate only because these will be the lowest tax rates you will see for the foreseeable future. The spending spree brought on by the election of Barack Obama has accelerated the American free-fall into debt and the lending machine we have been using to finance our deficits has finally warned us that they are about to pull the emergency brake handle; bringing it all to a screeching halt. Think of it…our nation has spent so much money that we have not only exhausted our own ability to finance it, but the ability for an entire pool of foreign nation’s to lend us the difference. That is quite a feat and certainly qualifies as the primary definition of Obama’s proclamation that he would “fundamentally transform” America.
What has happened here? In the timeline of human events it wasn’t all that long ago when we were a nation that innovated self-reliance; which was the catalyst that sparked the solutions to every one of our difficulties. There is a long history of financial cycles where business and employment waxed and waned but the free market responded with dynamic solutions; not under the watchful eye of government, but because government was not involved at all. Today, that dynamic structure is shackled by the heavy hand of government regulatory control.
As the Twentieth Century approached, America found itself allured by the false promises of European thinkers. Progressives had entered the scene armed with the teachings of Marx, Engels and Nietzsche hoping to create an America that could coalesce power under a strong central government with the authority to pool the nation’s resources together to provide a base standard of living for all. Our first truly Progressive President was Theodore Roosevelt and while he didn’t have the power to bring about the change that he wanted to see, he certainly planted the seeds of Marxism thinly veiled behind the uniquely American label of Progressivism. What Roosevelt did do was to create the precedent of creating administrative agencies under a loose interpretation of the Commerce Clause. After all, if you could tweak America’s understanding of the constitutional authority for Congress to “regulate” commerce, then nearly anything could be brought under Federal control.
Woodrow Wilson would be the next Progressive President to assault the Constitution and is in fact, the most damaging. As a man who considered himself a “Progressive intellectual”, Wilson began the process of radicalizing America and using the precedent established by Theodore Roosevelt, created the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Farm Loan Act and of course, the Progressive Income Tax to pay for it all. Curiously, there was no constitutional authority to create any of those programs but since Roosevelt had already started the vilification of the Corporation; it was an easy sale to convince America that it just needed to be done. Of course, since these programs added to the Federal budget that gave Wilson the ability to institute the Progressive Income Tax because the Constitution allows Congress to collect taxes to pay for the debts of government. Incidentally, when the Progressive Income Tax became law, it was promised that the top marginal rate would never exceed 10% and most Americans would accept a minor tax to provide for such important programs.
Wilson narrowly won his second term in 1916 by promising America that he would keep us out of the unpopular war that was raging in Europe; a promise that he would break less than a year later. The war expenditures created the economic conditions that would have Wilson break another promise in short order, when he raised the top marginal income tax rate to 77% to pay for America’s war debt. Wilson’s actions crippled business and investment and led directly to the unknown depression of 1920. The reason it is called the unknown depression is that while there is plenty of data available about this calamity; none of the facts are particularly flattering to Wilson or the Progressive movement so it is simply not discussed in schools, the press or academia. Worse news for our Progressive friends is that the facts surrounding our recovery from that depression soundly refute Progressive policy. President Warren Harding recognized the damage done by Wilson’s wild tax increases and responded by halving Federal spending and eventually reducing the top marginal tax rate to 25%. Within two years, the nation’s economy rebounded and the “Roaring Twenties” had been born.
Progressive Herbert Hoover became President in 1929 and as though he had no recollection of the damages wrought by Woodrow Wilson, immediately sought to use his Presidency to bring about more transformative change. Hoover began by closing what he called “tax loopholes” for the rich and could probably be credited for creating the open war against wealth that modern Progressives use to sway the general population’s support for any program or policy that will punish evil wealth and better the lives of average Americans with the proceeds. Hoover also raised tariffs and farm subsidies while increasing Federal expenditures for public projects such as veteran’s hospitals that for the first time thrust our medical system into a direct an unfair competition with the Federal government. Hoover also cancelled oil leases on government lands (does that sound familiar?); chaired White House conferences on child health, protection, homebuilding and homeownership; created an anti-trust division within the department of justice and generally saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by encouraging volunteerism.
It wasn’t a year before the nation slipped back into fiscal chaos as the bottom fell out of the stock market in 1929. Failing to learn the lessons set by Warren Harding in the early 1920’s, Hoover implemented huge public spending projects and raised the top marginal tax rate to 63% in 1932 throwing the nation into a full fledged depression. The Depression allowed the next great Progressive President his shot at transformative change; Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt had accused Hoover of spending and taxing the nation into depression, FDR immediately began his bid to tax and spend the nation out of depression. Yeah, that didn’t make sense to me either but that is what happens when Progressives control what you read, hear and learn. The lessons of history become lost in the fog of “intellectual rhetoric”.
In the midst of a crippling depression, FDR created a huge new Federal entitlement program (Social Security) and saddled us with a labor relations act that would legitimize collective bargaining. He is also the first President that advocated the establishment of a second “bill of rights” that would enumerate certain economic rights that were unnervingly similar to the rights listed in the Constitution adopted by the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. Fortunate, we dodged that bullet or we may be a very different nation today. In a slight of hand, FDR balanced the regular budget but the “emergency budget” created to combat the depression had increased Federal spending from 8% of GDP under Hoover to 10.2% under Roosevelt. As a result, the National Debt increased more than 100% and was 40% of GDP by 1936. To pay for all this spending FDR raised the top tax rate to an insane 79% in 1936 and Truman would continue this ultimately topping out at 94% after World War II.
While FDR’s programs caused a brief drop in unemployment from 25% when he assumed office to 14% in 1937, the tax hikes and new government programs would take their toll and create a new depression within a depression, throwing more people out of work. FDR’s programs are widely credited for ending the depression, which is the white-washed and revised history offered by Progressive historians that again, want to conceal that Progressivism, like its Socialist sister; does not work. The Depression would not end until World War II when the American industrial base was the only untouched manufacturing center left standing and if you wanted to buy anything, you had to buy it here. Of course modern Progressive’s use the artificial manufacturing boom of the ‘50’s to justify higher income tax rates. After all, if the nation had economic expansion with a top marginal tax rate of 94%; doesn’t that negate the validity of the cuts imposed by Harding? Well, since the economic expansion was based on an artificial and temporary demand, those Progressive assumptions must be equally artificial.
So now it’s 2010 and we have another Progressive in the White House and this Progressive is as corrupt, evil and devious as Woodrow Wilson was. While Barack Obama is seemingly ignorant of the historic solutions that are proven to relieve financial problems on a national scale, this Progressive has a willing band of co-conspirators holding absolute control over the Congress making his regime particularly dangerous. Ronald Reagan understood what needed to be done but by then, the Federal agencies created by the Progressives of the early and mid- twentieth century had become so powerful, and the misinformation fed to the general population was so complete that not even the charismatic “great communicator” could restore the Federal government to its basic and most successful roots.
While 2010 may be the lowest taxes we will see in a long time history has taught us that we must now brace for a new “Great Depression” as Obama continues to make the same mistakes that all of his Progressive predecessors made. In his case, I sincerely question whether his actions are actually mistakes. We may be witnessing the only Progressive President that truly understands the history of his actions and is intent on using them to complete the work started by Theodore Roosevelt to create an America based on the principals of Marx, Engels and Nietzsche. God help us all.
Paul
What has happened here? In the timeline of human events it wasn’t all that long ago when we were a nation that innovated self-reliance; which was the catalyst that sparked the solutions to every one of our difficulties. There is a long history of financial cycles where business and employment waxed and waned but the free market responded with dynamic solutions; not under the watchful eye of government, but because government was not involved at all. Today, that dynamic structure is shackled by the heavy hand of government regulatory control.
As the Twentieth Century approached, America found itself allured by the false promises of European thinkers. Progressives had entered the scene armed with the teachings of Marx, Engels and Nietzsche hoping to create an America that could coalesce power under a strong central government with the authority to pool the nation’s resources together to provide a base standard of living for all. Our first truly Progressive President was Theodore Roosevelt and while he didn’t have the power to bring about the change that he wanted to see, he certainly planted the seeds of Marxism thinly veiled behind the uniquely American label of Progressivism. What Roosevelt did do was to create the precedent of creating administrative agencies under a loose interpretation of the Commerce Clause. After all, if you could tweak America’s understanding of the constitutional authority for Congress to “regulate” commerce, then nearly anything could be brought under Federal control.
Woodrow Wilson would be the next Progressive President to assault the Constitution and is in fact, the most damaging. As a man who considered himself a “Progressive intellectual”, Wilson began the process of radicalizing America and using the precedent established by Theodore Roosevelt, created the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Farm Loan Act and of course, the Progressive Income Tax to pay for it all. Curiously, there was no constitutional authority to create any of those programs but since Roosevelt had already started the vilification of the Corporation; it was an easy sale to convince America that it just needed to be done. Of course, since these programs added to the Federal budget that gave Wilson the ability to institute the Progressive Income Tax because the Constitution allows Congress to collect taxes to pay for the debts of government. Incidentally, when the Progressive Income Tax became law, it was promised that the top marginal rate would never exceed 10% and most Americans would accept a minor tax to provide for such important programs.
Wilson narrowly won his second term in 1916 by promising America that he would keep us out of the unpopular war that was raging in Europe; a promise that he would break less than a year later. The war expenditures created the economic conditions that would have Wilson break another promise in short order, when he raised the top marginal income tax rate to 77% to pay for America’s war debt. Wilson’s actions crippled business and investment and led directly to the unknown depression of 1920. The reason it is called the unknown depression is that while there is plenty of data available about this calamity; none of the facts are particularly flattering to Wilson or the Progressive movement so it is simply not discussed in schools, the press or academia. Worse news for our Progressive friends is that the facts surrounding our recovery from that depression soundly refute Progressive policy. President Warren Harding recognized the damage done by Wilson’s wild tax increases and responded by halving Federal spending and eventually reducing the top marginal tax rate to 25%. Within two years, the nation’s economy rebounded and the “Roaring Twenties” had been born.
Progressive Herbert Hoover became President in 1929 and as though he had no recollection of the damages wrought by Woodrow Wilson, immediately sought to use his Presidency to bring about more transformative change. Hoover began by closing what he called “tax loopholes” for the rich and could probably be credited for creating the open war against wealth that modern Progressives use to sway the general population’s support for any program or policy that will punish evil wealth and better the lives of average Americans with the proceeds. Hoover also raised tariffs and farm subsidies while increasing Federal expenditures for public projects such as veteran’s hospitals that for the first time thrust our medical system into a direct an unfair competition with the Federal government. Hoover also cancelled oil leases on government lands (does that sound familiar?); chaired White House conferences on child health, protection, homebuilding and homeownership; created an anti-trust division within the department of justice and generally saw the presidency as a vehicle for improving the conditions of all Americans by regulation and by encouraging volunteerism.
It wasn’t a year before the nation slipped back into fiscal chaos as the bottom fell out of the stock market in 1929. Failing to learn the lessons set by Warren Harding in the early 1920’s, Hoover implemented huge public spending projects and raised the top marginal tax rate to 63% in 1932 throwing the nation into a full fledged depression. The Depression allowed the next great Progressive President his shot at transformative change; Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although Roosevelt had accused Hoover of spending and taxing the nation into depression, FDR immediately began his bid to tax and spend the nation out of depression. Yeah, that didn’t make sense to me either but that is what happens when Progressives control what you read, hear and learn. The lessons of history become lost in the fog of “intellectual rhetoric”.
In the midst of a crippling depression, FDR created a huge new Federal entitlement program (Social Security) and saddled us with a labor relations act that would legitimize collective bargaining. He is also the first President that advocated the establishment of a second “bill of rights” that would enumerate certain economic rights that were unnervingly similar to the rights listed in the Constitution adopted by the Communist regime of the Soviet Union. Fortunate, we dodged that bullet or we may be a very different nation today. In a slight of hand, FDR balanced the regular budget but the “emergency budget” created to combat the depression had increased Federal spending from 8% of GDP under Hoover to 10.2% under Roosevelt. As a result, the National Debt increased more than 100% and was 40% of GDP by 1936. To pay for all this spending FDR raised the top tax rate to an insane 79% in 1936 and Truman would continue this ultimately topping out at 94% after World War II.
While FDR’s programs caused a brief drop in unemployment from 25% when he assumed office to 14% in 1937, the tax hikes and new government programs would take their toll and create a new depression within a depression, throwing more people out of work. FDR’s programs are widely credited for ending the depression, which is the white-washed and revised history offered by Progressive historians that again, want to conceal that Progressivism, like its Socialist sister; does not work. The Depression would not end until World War II when the American industrial base was the only untouched manufacturing center left standing and if you wanted to buy anything, you had to buy it here. Of course modern Progressive’s use the artificial manufacturing boom of the ‘50’s to justify higher income tax rates. After all, if the nation had economic expansion with a top marginal tax rate of 94%; doesn’t that negate the validity of the cuts imposed by Harding? Well, since the economic expansion was based on an artificial and temporary demand, those Progressive assumptions must be equally artificial.
So now it’s 2010 and we have another Progressive in the White House and this Progressive is as corrupt, evil and devious as Woodrow Wilson was. While Barack Obama is seemingly ignorant of the historic solutions that are proven to relieve financial problems on a national scale, this Progressive has a willing band of co-conspirators holding absolute control over the Congress making his regime particularly dangerous. Ronald Reagan understood what needed to be done but by then, the Federal agencies created by the Progressives of the early and mid- twentieth century had become so powerful, and the misinformation fed to the general population was so complete that not even the charismatic “great communicator” could restore the Federal government to its basic and most successful roots.
While 2010 may be the lowest taxes we will see in a long time history has taught us that we must now brace for a new “Great Depression” as Obama continues to make the same mistakes that all of his Progressive predecessors made. In his case, I sincerely question whether his actions are actually mistakes. We may be witnessing the only Progressive President that truly understands the history of his actions and is intent on using them to complete the work started by Theodore Roosevelt to create an America based on the principals of Marx, Engels and Nietzsche. God help us all.
Paul
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