Apr 14, 2006
Exploiting the Workers
I discuss tax day here, mainly focusing on taxes as an assault on the workers to benefit the corporate state, and why liberals should come to recognize that once again.
I briefly mention in passing one little bit of history that a lot of Americans, including educated libertarians, seem not to know, despite its not being that obscure or esoteric: that the Income Tax Amendment was the dirty work of Republican William Howard Taft. I've often been challenged on this by libertarians who say it was Democrat Woodrow Wilson, but Taft backed the Amendment from 1909 to 1913 until it was finally ratifed by the states, years after the House and Senate approved it with overwhelming bipartisan support, a month before Taft left office. Why is it that people seem to think the Income Tax was Wilson's doing? Could it be because it was under Wilson that the tax really began to take a bite, and especially, at tyrannical rates, during World War I? Or is it just because Wilson was a Progressive Democrat and there seems to be a bizarre misconception, on both the left and right, that the trustbuster Taft was some sort of laissez faire politician, a throwback to the horse-and-buggy days?
I briefly mention in passing one little bit of history that a lot of Americans, including educated libertarians, seem not to know, despite its not being that obscure or esoteric: that the Income Tax Amendment was the dirty work of Republican William Howard Taft. I've often been challenged on this by libertarians who say it was Democrat Woodrow Wilson, but Taft backed the Amendment from 1909 to 1913 until it was finally ratifed by the states, years after the House and Senate approved it with overwhelming bipartisan support, a month before Taft left office. Why is it that people seem to think the Income Tax was Wilson's doing? Could it be because it was under Wilson that the tax really began to take a bite, and especially, at tyrannical rates, during World War I? Or is it just because Wilson was a Progressive Democrat and there seems to be a bizarre misconception, on both the left and right, that the trustbuster Taft was some sort of laissez faire politician, a throwback to the horse-and-buggy days?