As you often read, the top tax bracket back in the late 40s and early 50s used to be high. I mean, really high. I'm talking about tax rates in the over-90% range. And somehow, economic disaster didn't befall America. Young liberal fellows like myself are often heard talking up Clinton and the 1990s as evidence that raising taxes makes for a happy economy (and obviously a low deficit), but look at the chart I've linked to and you'll see that the American economy did very well with much higher tax rates than we had even with Bill in charge. The 1950s offer one example. And the tax hike Bill brought us was nothing compared to the jumps we had in the past. In 1916-1917, the tax rate on incomes over $2 million goes from 15% to 67%. Granted, hardly anyone was making that kind of money. But it's still quite a jump.
So when people ask -- "How are we going to fund free preschool and Medicare for all and all those other great liberal ideas?" -- shouldn't "raising the top tax bracket to something like 60%" be part of the answer?
