Sad Trivia

[RLymanC]

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[Chief]

What happened?

We became a society of high faluting city folk.

[ED SMITH]

Misinformation

RLyman, if you are going to cut and paste something from another site, you should at least cite the source and provide its URL. I have seen that list on at least 2 other sites.

Apart from that, it is wrong. Besides omitting a number of other taxes, estate, gift, smog, airport, passenger, ticket, etc. the claim that none of these taxes ever existed over one hundred years ago is FALSE.

"Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago "

Property taxes go back to the beginnings of the colonies and in fact, there was a Federal property tax enacted in 1798 to raise money for an impendignwar with France. In colonial days there were other taxes, as well. There were poll or head taxes, taxes on livestock, excise taxes, tariffs and faculty taxes, which taxed on earning power.

As for income taxes, the current system began in 1913, but it was not the first time an income tax had been imposed. In 1862, during the civil war a tax was imposed of 3% over $600 and 5% over $10,000. This was raised in 1864 and was not eliminated until 1872 when the supreme court overthrew its previous decisions and declared it unconstitutional.

[ED SMITH]

Part 2

...."and our nation was the most prosperous in the world,"

It still is, is it not?


...."had absolutely no national debt,"

This is the problem with the internet. Anyone can concoct something without anything to back it up. It's like barroom talk. The only time there was no national debt was in 1835-36 during Andrew Jackson's presidency. In 1900, it was $2.1 billion. Of course it has skyrocket since then.


...."had the largest middle class in the world"

Don't we still?


....."and only one parent had to work to support the family"

The only part of the comment I agree with, but not completely.

......."What the hell happened?"

It would take a book to adequately answer that. But I see several major reasons.
1. Government size and complexity
2. Demand for government services
3. A trend toward socialism and distribution of wealth

The US has perhaps the worlds most complex governmental system, with federal, state, county, municipality, townships, and special districts, school, water, faire, sanitation, irrigation, air quality, etc. All these beasts have to be fed with taxes, also called assessments or fees.

On top of it all is the federal gov't with its departments, agencies, commissions, administrations, boards, military branches, policing agencies and on and on and it keeps growing.

It keeps growing because more and more people demand more and more government services, services that didn't exist 100 years ago. This has created entitlement programs which are a distribution of income - socialism.

It is a paradox that socialism cannot exist without a strong capitalist base to generate tax income to pay for all the social programs. The Soviets found that out the hard way. Even Castro said Cuba would have to use capitalism to save socialism, which was really an admission of its failure.

To go back to one parent vs two parents working. This is partly due to rising expectations of having to acquire a bigger, home, car, better clothes, more travel, etc. and partly due to social changes.
I have dealt with a large number of latinos and asians and the mother invariably is at home with the kids. Usually they have three generations living in the same house and some times aunts and uncles. This is the way I grew up. It is inconceivable today among non-latinos. Everybody has to have their own place, their own car and everything that goes along with these.

The other burden on middle class families are taxes particularly in a high tax state.

Hope you all had a nice turkey day, ED

[RLymanC]

Trivia

My last line was:
What the hell happened?
Thank you for your answers,,very informative.
Do you mind if I cut and paste your responses and send to the person that sent me my original post.?

[Black Bart]

RLymanC / Passing it on

Do you mind if I cut and paste your responses

Only if you (chuckle-chuckle) give him credit and post the URL (whatever that means).

Boy, it's tough to post anything and "get away with it" nowadays. I've passed on stuff like that a time or two and there's at least a 75% chance that you'll get bludgeoned by a well-read scholar, promptly pronouncing it to be a lot of baloney.

Oh well, kudos to you anyway for trying to keep us entertained during the wee hours.

By the way; did I understand you to say, a few posts back, that you had 1,500 clients and you worked out of your home? That's an astounding accomplishment (I've only got 500 and I'm on the highway). How'd you do it?