This post has a simple purpose: to remind people of the historical realities of tax rates in the United States. It’s mainly setup for the chart you’ll see a few paragraphs below.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Michael Dell, founder of Dell Computers, was asked about the idea of raising the top marginal tax rate to 70 percent. (It’s now 37 percent.)
He said—to laughs—that from his personal perspective it would be a bad idea. But he also thought it would be bad for the country’s growth. When the moderator, Heather Long of the Washington Post, asked him to explain why, Dell said, “Name a country where that’s worked. Ever.”
You can see the exchange in a CNN video here.
Sitting on the same panel was the economist Erik Brynjolfsson, of MIT, who spoke up immediately to say: actually there is such a country. It is the United States, through most of its post-World War II expansion.
by James Fallows, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Tax Policy Center
