Baxter Black: 90% Taxes is Nothing New

This year I'm having a déjà foo.

I remember learning in high school social studies that the maximum income tax then was 90%! I was stunned! Over the years I watched President Kennedy reduce the max tax to 62%. In 1989 Reagan reduced the max-tax to 28%. Tax Creep rose then George W. Bush knocked it back to 30% after the 9/11 depression and now, President Trump has used tax relief to lift a chronic economy out of stagnation.

It is an old cycle.

Lately some politicians have proposed Socialism as a future for America whereas max-taxes of 70 and 90% are demanded. But do you think well-off Americans will pay these exorbitant taxes? OF COURSE NOT! This is America! A good businessman will call his lawyers, accountants and brokers to invest his money back into his own business, donate to charities, buy bonds, etc…all TAX EXEMPT!

In the 70's they bought cattle feed in advance, they bought barges, railroad cars, built apartments, bought farmland, funded construction and invested their money back into the private sector. They preferred to choose how to invest their own money themselves rather than hand it over to politicians. It was good for them but it left the middle class businessman struggling to get ahead.

I'm a good example. In 1982 I moved from a regular check to entrepreneurism with no "financial expertise or advisors," so the government took half my money! It was tough. Sometimes my airline ticket was more than my speaking fee!

I owe two presidents credit for making it possible to convert this "workin' for wages cow vet" into the self-supporting cowboy poet that I became. In 1978 President Carter deregulated the airlines. Suddenly the airlines had competition and travel became affordable. Then President Reagan dropped the tax rate from 50% in 1983 to 28% in 1987. He let me keep my money to invest in my own business! I took off and never looked back.

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