Has anyone here seen this RW email?

[silverweb]

I've found it repeated ad nauseam on many RW web sites. However, I have not been able to find any factual verification or refutation of the statements made at the end.

=====
Read to the bottom
Taxes
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
Capital Gains Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Court Fines (indirect taxes)
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel permit tax
Gasoline Tax (42 cents per gallon)
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax Interest expense (tax on the money)
Inventory tax IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Local Income Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Septic Permit Tax
Service Charge Taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Taxes (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Road Toll Booth Taxes
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone federal excise tax
Telephone federal universal service fee tax
Telephone federal, state and local surcharge taxes
Telephone minimum usage surcharge tax
Telephone recurring and non-recurring charges tax
Telephone state and local tax
Telephone usage charge tax
Toll Bridge Taxes
Toll Tunnel Taxes
Traffic Fines (indirect taxation)
Trailer registration tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

COMMENT: Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago and our nation was the most prosperous in the world, had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What the hell happened?
=====

Typically with RW email campaigns, statements presented as "facts" are often completely false and/or misleading. I think the dogmatic tone here is what raised red flags for me. I DO question all of the statements at the end:

(1) "Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago..."
(This can't be true. Government didn't run on air, of that I'm sure. So where did revenue come from?)

(2) "...and our nation was the most prosperous in the world,"
(I think that's debatable about the early 1900s, isn't it?)

(3) "...had absolutely no national debt,"
(Is there verification for this statement?)

(4) "...had the largest middle class in the world,"
(I STRONGLY doubt this and seem to remember that the early 1900s was an era of indentured servitude for immigrants and grinding poverty for many Americans.)

(5) "...and Mom stayed home to raise the kids."
(In well-to-do households, this probably was true. In poor homes, my understanding is that both parents labored, while children also were often turned out to work at a young age or abandoned outright.)

Since I'm only now making a dent in the history I never learned in school, I once again turn to DU. I know there are DUers here with the background and expertise to help me respond to this email. These things cannot be allowed to go unchallenged, so I'm asking for and will look forward to all input - especially if you can offer documentation!

[Julien Sorel]

1. Most revenue for the government was collected

via tariffs and so on -- which is a highly regressive tax, it's just not called a tax, though. There were excise taxes, kind of a domestic tariff, which were again highly regressive. The first enforced federal income tax was enacted to help pay for the Civil War, but there were a couple prior, that were simply never enforced.

This is, by the way, a libertarian screed, not just a right wing screed. You might point out the educational levels of folks back then, the total lack of a safety net, a puny armed forces: it's utopian nonsense at heart.

[fizzana]

2. And a hundred years ago there was little

free public education, there was no highway system to be maintained, local streets were mud pits with sewage running down them, there were few local services provided by town or cities. A lot of the services we take for granted didn't exist in those days.

There are hundreds of other examples but I'm too tired to think of them. That's how to counter the argument. If hte wingnuts want to return to life 100 years ago they're welcome to it.

[arcane1]

3. we also didn't have a gazillion-dollar military industrial complex then

that's costing us quite a bit too

not to mention we had some poor-ass people in 1903!

I might add that CEO salaries have increased several factors more than wages have in that time span. Money is shared a great deal less now from the top down

[maggrwaggr]

4. Oh yeah. Things were just PEACHY back then

I'd like to take all these people who think how great it was back then and just fucking send them back in time!

Let them see how great it was. They'd probably be dead of influenza in a week. Or maybe they'd catch syphillis and die. Or perhaps they'd just be happy eating human hands ground up in their sausages. Oh yeah, and the coal smoke ........ and the cholera ........ and etc. etc.

[GoodSpud]

5. Debt in 1903 was $1.5 billion

It increase steadily until 1914. U.S. Debt has been with us since 1793.

Court fines have been around every since there have been courts.

The Erie canal (1817) was finance via state bonds repaid via a toll.

Liquor Taxes have been around for a LOOONG time.

Look up Shays Rebellion for examples of early American tax revolts.



Basically this is just more rightwing crap. I only looked at point one but could find counter examples for each of your points if you want.

TDPR

[silverweb]

6. Perfect!

What you have here is exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for! :)

If you have easy access to more information on the points listed, I'll most gladly take advantage of your research and knowledge.

Thank you!

:hi:

[sandnsea]

9. 1806, Old National Road

First federal project, built to open up the 'west' to settlement and trade. From Maryland to Illinois.

[GoodSpud]

11. Okay lets do the easiest part first...

I'll do the point you listed then if I have the energy try to hit some of the specific in the article. I am not trying to find one perfect source for the info but will try to use those which look 'official' or academic.


1)Sufficiently discredited IMHO. If you want take a look at http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html for a history of the income tax. It also covers some of the other 'non-existent' taxes on the list.

2)In 1900 the unemployment rate was 5%. Per capita US GDP was $4096. Australia's per capita GDP was $4299. New Zealand's was $4320 and Great Britain's was $4593. That means that US GDP was only 89% of Great Britain's. That is a substancial difference. Source: http://woodstock.wesleyan.edu/acsocsci/jmcguire/table/income.htm

(Note that these numbers are higher that the real dollar figures would have been that have been adjust into '1990 Geary-Khamis dollars'. I don't know exactly what that means but am content that we are comparing apples to apples)

3)Just plain wrong. Acording to the US Treasury (who should know) debt on 07/01/1900 was $2,136,961,091.67. Source: http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto3.htm

4)I also strongly doubt it but can't figure out any way to prove it at this point. Data before 1929 is really sparse. But remember that there was very limited labor unionism, lots of agricultural workers and not as much industrialization as you would probably think.

5)Just under 20% of women worked outside the home in 1900. Source:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104673.html Now it is about 60%. Also consider that The International Ladies' Garment Workers Union (IGWU) was formed in 1900.

Hope this helps.


TDPR

[kcwayne]

12. Another point about women working outside the home

In 1900, there were still a very large number of Americans that lived on farms. Although women on farms did not work "outside the home", the amount of work in the home was totally consuming.

Only the wealthy could afford to purchase many items used in the home such as bread, preserved fruit, meat, milk, clothing, etc. Most homes had to manufacture these items within, and this was largely done by women.

Women were not accepted in the workplace, outside of a few industries such as textiles. There was a cultural stigma against women working, so it was not simply a matter of choice that women stayed at home.

My grandmothers never "worked" a day in their lives. But look at the pictures of these women (born in the 1890s) and look at how tired and worn they are. Look at the pictures of their mothers (born in the 1870s) and it looks like they have spent their life in concentration camps.

[Maeve]

13. Worn-out grandmas

I have a picture of my great-grandmother the summer before she died. She is worn, old and I suspect she had lost at least some of her teeth, from the sunken look around her mouth. She looks very old.

She was 34.

[newyawker99]

17. Hi T.D.P. Roberts!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[GoodSpud]

23. Hola newyawker

Thanks for the greeting. Actually I have been lurking so long it is kind of sad....

I just thought I would take a couple of years to get to know the culture, ya know what I mean? :silly:

TDPR

[Sancho Panza]

22. the debt was paid off only once

When Democrat Andrew Jackson was president. The present multi-trillion dollar debt we have now has been accruing since he left office in the 1830's.

[Romberry]

7. Ignorant people wishing for good old days...

...that never were.

Here is a link to an article in the Saturday Evening Post circa 1913.

http://www.restoreliberty.com/incometax.htm

The income-tax question is one that will not down. For the best of reasons this is true. Way down in the hearts of the masses of mankind there lurks a strong sense of justice, on which is founded the opinion that vast accumulations of wealth in the hands of individuals or corporations should help to support the Government under which they are acquired, by which they are protected and without which they would vanish.

And why not? Why tax the widow's mite and the orphan's bread, and not tax these accumulations? Why lay tribute on what we eat and wear, and leave untaxed millions in the hands of those who can never personally consume it, and with whom it is surplus?

If there ever was a time when the concentrated wealth of the land should bear its share of our enormous expenses of government it is now.

A hundred years ago there was certainly a "middle class" but it was not broad based. The rise of the America we all grew up in and remember did not come about until FDR's New Deal and WWII.

Also refer to Paul Krugman's "For Richer" at http://pkarchive.org/economy/ForRicher.html

The first point you learn from these new estimates is that the middle-class America of my youth is best thought of not as the normal state of our society, but as an interregnum between Gilded Ages. America before 1930 was a society in which a small number of very rich people controlled a large share of the nation's wealth. We became a middle-class society only after the concentration of income at the top dropped sharply during the New Deal, and especially during World War II. The economic historians Claudia Goldin and Robert Margo have dubbed the narrowing of income gaps during those years the Great Compression. Incomes then stayed fairly equally distributed until the 1970's: the rapid rise in incomes during the first postwar generation was very evenly spread across the population.

Of course the answer to these right wing emails are complicated but that just serves to show that these emails are really simple minded. Basically, they depend on ignorance of history and just plain simple mindedness in general.

The bottom line is that there certainly were many taxes a hundred years ago and the burden of paying them fell on the working class. The people of that era woke up to the injustice. The ignorant of our era want to follow Grover Norquist's lead back to the good old days...that never were.

The progressivity of the overall tax code is basically gone today. See the chart here: http://geocities.com/hushreport/progressive_tax_code.html

And realize that chart was made before the last round of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Finally, the fact is that the tax burden in the United States is among the lowest of any developed nation on earth.

Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society. The right wingers can never wrap their brains around that concept.

[wuushew]

8. Chicago 1900 looks like shit, according to this site

http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/1900/fam.html

[silverweb]

10. Woohoo!!

I knew it! You guys are the best!!



I have to go to bed now, but I'll check back tomorrow and gather these wonderful gems you're all leaving here.

Thanks, you wonderful, wonderful DU people!

:toast:

[Maeve]

14. Let's do the easy ones

Cigarette taxes
Income tax (and all others mentioning IRS)
State and local income taxes
Unimployment tax
Gasoline tax
Social Security tax
All seven telephone taxes on the list
Utility taxes
Vehilce taxes
Workers Comp taxes

First, there was no mass production of telephones, cigarettes or automobiles at the time, so taxing them wasn't considered. Same for utilities--my folks didn't get electricity until the 1930's.
Second, there was no Workers comp or unemployment, so no need to fund them. Out of work? Injured? Too bad.
Income taxes didn't come until 1913 and the ratification of the 16th Amendment, true.
However, toll bridges and roads have existed since the beginning of the country--same with taxes on alcohol production (why do you think whisky stills were illegal? No taxes being paid!) Property and real estate taxes, yup. That's why only the landowners were given the vote for so long. And there was even a thing called a poll tax in some places, money to pay if you wanted to vote.
And we've had a national debt about as long as we've had a nation, too.

[WoodrowFan]

21. Utilities

There were utilities at the time, there were Gas Companies, Electric Companies in big cities, water companies, trash removal companies, and "traction", i.e. trolley companies. Typically it would work like this.

Businessman Fred Trolley wants to buy the traction franchise in Gotham. Fred goes to the City Council and asks for the right of way in a particular section of town. The city council agrees, but for a large fee "for the city." Fred pays the fee, as well as promising to pay a proportion of fare he charges customers for a set period, often 25 years. The Council members split much of the 'fee' amongst themselves, this was often called 'boodling.'* The cost of this graft, of course, gets passed back to the customers by Fred’s company. Both parties, Democratic and republican, practiced this method, depending on which one controlled city hall at the right time.

The truly ambitious businessman, or council member, would get a franchise in an area where there was ALREADY a trolley line, or gas lines, etc, and then sell their new franchise to the existing company. That way you didn't have to actually BUILD anything to profit, you just extorted the money by threatening competition. Some of the more creative even invented companies to sell thing such as 'compressed air' lines, which had no practical purpose, but allowed the businessman to bribe a council member to grease the skids for another venture. "I'll pay you $30,000 for city rights for my air company if you agree to stop obstructing my rights to build a gas line in your neighborhood." Some of the greedier politicians would sell franchise rights by individual city block, rather than by entire neighborhood. “OK, Main Street from 22d to 23d Street, that’s $5,000. Main from 23d to 24th, that’s another $5,000, to 25th, that’s $5,000…”

At any rate, the fees charged by the government for the franchise rights are, under the terms used by the note you quoted, a "tax” and it did come out of the average person’s pocketbook!




* I think I got that term right. I will double check.

[kwolf68]

15. PROPAGANDA

The right likes to romanticize the past as a way to explain why limited (or no) government is best.

For a real critique on American Libertairanism I submit the period of 1870 to 1904 or so. Go back and see what limited government gave this nation. Just check the facts. No need for me to say what was going on, but it ain't pretty.

[WoodrowFan]

16. Book-The Good Old Days, They Were Terrible

I recomend this book highly...

The Good Old Days--They Were Terrible! by Otto L., Dr. Bettmann.

Book Description
This book explains why the "good old days" were only good for a priviledged few and why they were unrelentingly hard for most. Sobering, actually. Check it out.


About the Author
Otto L. Bettmann is the founder of the famed Bettmann Archive in New York, one of the world's great picture libraries. Its resources, some three million prints and photographs, are used all over the world by publishers, educators, ad men and the audio-visual media.
After acting as curator of rare books at the State Art Library in Berlin, Dr. Bettmann came to America in 1935, where he established the Archive and became well known as an expert in the graphic arts.



Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394709411/qid=1063283098/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/002-2344738-9238441?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[kwolf68]

18. I have heard of that book

This is another in the mythical lies...And its being perpetuated by Republicans.

None of us were alive in 1896 (at least most of us weren't) so they just say anything to advance their agenda.

However, on this issue all one has to do is simply look at the facts and we will see just how America functions when government has virtually no role in the country...The nation was awash in monopolies, corporate corruption and cronism, rat shit in meats, unsafe products, abborant living conditions, union busting, industrial deaths, incomprehensible distribution of income, child slave labor, 75 hour work week and further worker oppression, disgraceful pollution levels, etc....

The only reason things slowed a bit was when industry - in an effort to quell the tide of the Socialist movement within the nation- began to make things a little better.

Teddy Roosevelt came in (1901) and also started to crack down, busting trusts and standing up for workers which really started change the direction of our country away from two classes (the rich and oppressed) to a vibrant middle class.

[Cassandra]

20. I was just looking around my shelves for my own copy

Haven't found it yet, but it's a great and eye-opening book. How The Other Half Lives, by Jacob Riis (required reading in my high school) is also very sobering.
The Little House Cookbook talks also about food before the FDA; flour adulterated with plaster of paris, dyed navy beans pretending to be coffee beans,pebbles mixed in with real beans, lethal food dyes, milk from tubercular cows, unregulated scales in the markets, and on and on...

[radwriter0555]

19. what a frickin waste of time.

Stupid crap. Ignore it. We'll focus on real issues.