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That's misleading. Marginal tax rates on the highest tax brackets were nominally high, BUT there were way more deductions and loopholes. There was no Alternativ

That's misleading. Marginal tax rates on the highest tax brackets were nominally high, BUT there were way more deductions and loopholes. There was no Alternative Minimum Tax like there is today. A big part of Reagan's tax reforms was eliminating these deductions while bringing the rates down. Also, America was the only game in town during those years. All of the competition was still recovering from WW2 and/or being suffocated by communist rule. And it was a single market the size of the rest of the Western world combined. If you had money, America was the place to invest it. Major technological breakthroughs, even when originating overseas, generally took off in the US. On a moral note, I think that an 80% tax rate is oppressive. That money would otherwise be flowing into business investments & consumption, charity, and civil society, the natural institutions of free people.

cottonseed 11y ago
> That money would otherwise be flowing into business investments & consumption, charity, and civil society, the natural institutions of free people. What do you think the gov't does with it, burn it? 5 of the 6 startups I worked for wouldn't have happened without government assistance (DARPA-funded university project spinouts, SBA, government contracting.) Consumption is spending money. They government spends it, or give it to people who do (that seems to cover consumption and charity.) What is more civil than banding together to take some of the variance out of life?
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  > What is more civil than banding together to take some of the variance out of life? Letting people decide how to spend their own money. Private charity is "banding together to take some of the variance out of life". Like all of the government's authority, taxation flows from the end of a gun. You can be imprisoned and fined if you don't pay what you owe. > What do you think the gov't does with it, burn it? 5 of the 6 startups I worked for wouldn't have happened without government assistance Government investment in certain sectors can be good, such as for fundamental sciences. But in general, private investment does better with the same amount of money. Even when government programs are well designed at their birth, the world around them changes faster than politics and bureaucracy can keep up with.

cottonseed 11y ago

> That money would otherwise be flowing into business investments & consumption, charity, and civil society, the natural institutions of free people. What do you think the gov't does with it, burn it? 5 of the 6 startups I worked for wouldn't have happened without government assistance (DARPA-funded university project spinouts, SBA, government contracting.) Consumption is spending money. They government spends it, or give it to people who do (that seems to cover consumption and charity.) What is more civil than banding together to take some of the variance out of life?

marcoperaza 11y ago
> What is more civil than banding together to take some of the variance out of life? Letting people decide how to spend their own money. Private charity is "banding together to take some of the variance out of life". Like all of the government's authority, taxation flows from the end of a gun. You can be imprisoned and fined if you don't pay what you owe. > What do you think the gov't does with it, burn it? 5 of the 6 startups I worked for wouldn't have happened without government assistance Government investment in certain sectors can be good, such as for fundamental sciences. But in general, private investment does better with the same amount of money. Even when government programs are well designed at their birth, the world around them changes faster than politics and bureaucracy can keep up with.