I agree that is not a tremendous amount, but capturing billions of dollars from the economy certainly did nothing to help matters. The 50s remained prosperous in spite of the high tax rates, in large part because America was reaping the benefits of being the super power of the world, of having tremendous booms from war time expenditures, and having the most intact industrial base in the world.
Facepalm gif. You realize that you just undermined the whole case for capitalism, right? Other nations being in bad shape is not a positive for our economy. And the biggest problem (out of many candidates) with the "in spite of high taxes" argument is the Fed. Under normal circumstances (with interest rates not at zero), if the economy is overheating, the Fed slows it down, and if it's sluggish, the Fed speeds it up.
True. People do not like the purposes taxes are apportioned to.
That's not what I mean. Higher income taxes (for example), particularly on the top brackets, lead to a flatter income distribution. Some people like that, some don't. That's really what the tax debates are about. People will throw out bogus arguments about the effect on growth (in both directions, really--I think that lower taxes could lead to more volatility, but even that is far from certain), but the real argument is about who gets what.
If you remember, a couple of months ago, Republican hacks tried to make a big deal out of some comments by an economist who designed a model to project ACA costs. The substance of the comments, which were correct, were about the abstractness of fiscal categories. We could have 0% taxes or 100% taxes without any real change in the functioning of the gov't as long as we got creative (such as financing the gov't with money printing or credits that can be sold for money).
This economic paper agrees that the increase in economic activity is small, but the effects are noticable and profound.
There's also this:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf
As far as the data goes, the debate is over whether tax rates matter a very little bit or not at all (granted that that is for realistic tax situations).
Certainly, it's speculative, but in line with the economic views addressed in the sources above, it would seem to follow. I mean, we cannot return to conditions of the 50s in order to test these hypotheses, especially as the 50s saw America alone in the world being non-destroyed. We aren't going to replicate that element anytime soon (and thankfully).
We can't turn back the clock on the growth we've had since then (though the last two quarters have seen 1950s-style growth), the technological progress or the demographic changes. But the point is that there's nothing in the data that suggests that tax rates matter much in ordinary circumstances (the cuts that were part of the stimulus were helpful, though not as helpful as the temporary spending increase, because we were in a situation where the Fed would not offset growth and could not spur it).
There is no evidence that Southerners are less rational and focused on justice.
I'm pretty sure there is. Like their entire voting history.
Democracy has a place in the ideal polity, but it is one which has to be tempered by elements which are more monarchical and aristocratic in nature, if not in form (I am not suggesting we should be ruled by hereditary kings or nobility, but that the government reflect monarchy and aristocracy in equal parts to democracy).
Because monarchy has such a great track record and liberal democracy has such a bad one? Or because monarchy fits with reasonable notions of justice? Or what?