Bernie
Sanders noted that “When radical, socialist Dwight D. Eisenhower was
president, I think the highest marginal tax rate was something like 90
percent.” Paul Krugman said the same thing as did Michael Moore in his
film Capitalism: A
Love Story and you’ll see this factoid repeated on countless
memes floating around the Internet.However, what a tax rate is and what is
actually paid are two very different things. Indeed, in 1955, the only people
paying 90 percent (actually 91 percent) were those making over $3,425,766 when adjusted for inflation. And these
are marginal rates, so they only paid that on any earnings above that
threshold…….
Regardless, the simple fact is that the rich never
paid 90 percent of their income in taxes or anything even remotely close to
that. Unfortunately though, some memes die hard.
