You're looking at a very narrow slice of time, affected by other factors, and considering only one piece of the whole wealth-redistribution puzzle (tax rates) and not by any means the most important one, and besides that when you say Clinton gave the rich tax breaks you are factually inaccurate. (Unless, again, you are using an idiosyncratic definition of "rich.")

The most important factors in terms of how wealth is distributed aren't taxes but labor, immigration, and trade policy. Taxes do make a difference, but those three things set the ground rules and parameters within which market forces establish prevailing real wages, which is the biggest single determinant of wealth distribution.

The time frame to look at begins after the Civil War. That's when the U.S. became unambiguously an industrial nation, and also when the labor wars began. We have had essentially three economies since then. My description of them is necessarily going to be long; unfortunately there is no simple and easy way to understand such a complicated topic -- frankly, your attempt to simplify it is exactly what is leading you into error.

The first economy continued from the end of the Civil War until the onset of the Great Depression. It was characterized by government policy that almost completely favored capital and suppressed the aspirations of labor. (There were some moderate stabs at reform under Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, but on the whole what I said is true.) Forming a labor union was considered radical and dangerous, and unions were suppressed violently. There were no regulations regarding workplace safety, no minimum wage, and immigration policy was set to ensure a very large pool of labor so as to keep wages low. It was also characterized by a dramatic boom-bust cycle, with periodic panics far worse than any recession today, punctuated by booms that were lower, not higher, than what we have now. All predictable IMO: wages were too low to fuel healthy consumer demand that would have sustained the economy well, and the "booms" were mainly driven by investor speculation, inevitably disappointed after the first few years when consumers ran out of money. The last "boom" from this economy occurred in the 1920s, and was followed by the biggest "bust" of all.

The Depression itself should not really be considered as part of any of the economies; it was transitional between the first and the second, and was so very bad that it will give an unfair thrust downward to either one in which it is incorporated. But it was during the Depression that the ground rules were changed to make government policy more labor friendly. After the jump-start provided by the massive federal spending necessary to fight World War II, and after the war was over and we were able to return to a peacetime economy, these rule changes put us into the second economy.

The second economy ran from about 1946 or 1947 until about midway through the first Reagan term, say 1982. It was characterized by federal regulations of most businesses, labor-friendly policies, and more restrictive immigration policies that kept wages high. It was also the strongest and most stable the U.S. economy has ever been. There were still recessions, but nowhere near as bad as in the first economy, and the booms were boomier. Higher highs, and higher lows as well. All the major industries were unionized, which drove real wages up even in those that weren't. Two things happened that hurt this economy and opened the door to the Reagan counterrevolution. The first was the Vietnam War, which caused massive federal deficits (although nothing like what we have now), and the second was the oil embargo of the 1970s, which created artificial oil shortages and drove up the price of everything while stagnating the economy. The second of those was particularly disastrous, but predictably temporary; we had only reached the U.S. oil production peak (which allowed OPEC to impose an embargo, something that would have been impossible when the U.S. was a net oil exporter), and the global peak was still decades away, so there were still untapped reserves around the world that, together with improved efficiency, allowed the problem to be overcome pretty easily. But while it lasted, the effect was very harmful.

This situation allowed Reagan to be elected and to enact his changes to policy. Under him, the government became less union-friendly, and the tax code was changed to shift the burden downward. More importantly, though, the groundwork was laid for the third economy through the first "free trade" agreements that, together with advanced communication technology, allowed capital transfers overseas to countries that had not undergone our own labor wars and still had downtrodden, oppressed labor pools that could be hired dirt-cheap. The effects began immediately but the worst of them did not appear until after Reagan left office. During his terms, the economy recovered, despite his policies not because of them. The reason for the recovery was that the suppressing effect of the artificial oil shortage was overcome right around the time he took office. This was, of course, not because of anything he did (and only slightly because of anything Carter did), it was simply market forces driving improvements in efficiency and the opening of new oil fields, which were still there to be opened in those days. In short, the Reagan economy showed improvement not because Reagan's policies were good, but because he was the beneficiary of lucky timing.

Since then, the general trend has been downward. More and more industries move overseas, and more and more of the federal budget is devoted to paying interest on the national debt. The effect is a decline in real wages over decades, and reduced buying power, partially offset by the aggressive promotion of consumer credit at cheap rates -- but that, too, is now coming to an end, as it had to. Although the rules of domestic employment haven't changed dramatically, this end-run around those rules available to employers who can ship their operations overseas has put us back into the old boom-bust cycle, and as before, now the "booms" are primarily driven by investor speculation. The last major boom was in the 1990s with the dot-com explosion, which was exactly the sort of speculative boom that the country used to go through periodically, followed by exactly the sort of contraction it used to have when the speculators wised up. (The '90s boom had little to do with Clinton policies. He did balance the budget, which helped, but he also negotiated still more "free trade" agreements, which hurt more. The downturn in the Bush years was predictable, accelerated but not caused by Bush's own foolish policies, both fiscal and military.)

Over this span of decades, it is easy to see that when the government's policy has been labor-friendly and when wealth has been distributed broadly -- again, more due to other policies than to taxes, although that is also a factor -- the economy has done best, and when policies have been followed that favored capital, and wealth was concentrated most in fewest hands, it has done worst.

Your own experiences as a small-business owner in no way contradict this trend. If the policies from the 1960s had remained in place instead of being reversed, our economy as a whole would be much healthier now, and you would have been able to expand your business with or without those tax cuts.

Jimmy Carter lowered the amount of interest Americans could deduct on their home mortages. This resulted in huge tax increase to all Americans, poor, middle class & wealthy. The result--10% unemployment, along with staggering inflation & interest rates at 18%.

This is what happens when a President decides to take money out of the pockets of average working class Americans.

The question is, what do we do to pay for our incredibly high expenditures, not only on shit we don't need, but also on shit that harms us? Print more money? As I have said before, the liberals won't do much to cut spending, but they will increase taxes. The neocons want to spend more and more, and want to cut taxes (although insignificantly). The neocons won't vote for Ron Paul and neither will the liberals. What other answer is there?

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Only homeowners. That hardly describes "all," or even a majority of Americans. And it wasn't huge at all.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. You're saying that the continuing oil shortages had nothing to do with it. It was all a result of that one tax.

Ron Paul has pretty much shown he's no longer interested in being President, so why would anyone vote for him?

The problem isn't just that, it's that they don't want to vote for someone with his set of policies, even though those policies are what we need. They weren't interested in voting for him before, either. It's all about voting for some big government retard for the liberals or an even bigger government, warmongering retard for the neocons.

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Cut spending: It's not the taxes that the government brings in, it's their unwillingness to cut spending. Regardless of how much money they bring in, they will always spend more than what they have.

Both Democrats & Republicans are guilty of overspending.

There's a good point that arises out of this that I'll come back to in a moment, but I'll address first what you're saying here.

It's actually both taxes and spending, specifically the first being less than the second, that causes deficits. The deficit can be reduced or eliminated either by raising taxes or by cutting spending, or by a combination of both. And the deficit can be increased either by cutting taxes or by increasing spending, or -- as Bush has done -- by a combination of both.

This is just common-sense stuff.

The good point I want to make is that if you cut taxes and DON'T cut spending to match the new, lower revenue levels, you haven't cut taxes, really. All you've done is defer them, because the money borrowed to pay the shortfall will have to be paid back. And in fact, because it will have to be paid back with interest, what you've really done is both defer and increase taxes.

But anyway, the way to plug the fiscal hemorrhage that Bush has caused is to reverse both his tax cuts and his spending increases. If you just do one, e.g. just reverse the tax cuts, you'll still bleed, just not by as much. So we need to bring our boys home from Iraq and stop throwing money away there; we need to stop being so generous with federal aid to the filthy rich and stop throwing money away there; and we need to adopt a sensible trade policy, keep American capital in the U.S. instead of investing it in third world thugocracies, wean ourselves off oil, and so shore up the economy so that we have some decent tax revenues to start with.

As for the observation that Republicans increase spending, too, that's obviously true. But then, quite some time ago I came to the conclusion that the ridiculously high deficits under Republican administrations isn't a sign of incompetence, but rather of deliberate intent. Government debt works as a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the rich, one that is complicated enough and subtle enough that few taxpayers can understand it, so that it flies under the radar. And that's what these guys want.

You were not born yet or were very young, when Jimmy Carter was President.
Be honest!

The result of his lowering the bar on the amount of interest one could deduct on their home mortgages was devastating to this country. Obviously with your statement you probably rent, versus own today.

Americans, even back in the 1970's owned homes. My grandparents, my mother, my uncles & aunts, plus friends all owned homes. Didn't mean they were rich, they were just hard working Americans. In fact, I cannot remember anyone back then that rented, except for young single people.

When they got married, the first thing, as is today, on their agenda is & was to buy a home. REASON: Mortgage interest tax deduction, plus growing equity, versus throwing money away on rent. It was & still considered the largest INVESTMENT Americans make.

So contrary to your statement "it wasn't a huge deal", is absurd. I lived & survived Jimmy Carter in my mid-twenties, owning a home, realising how much damage he did, & working hard to make our small business sucessful, at the same time. It was the hardest economic time of my life. I can tell you that he was the very worst President I can remember in my 55 years.

Jimmy Carter was vacant of any economic understanding.

Then you must oppose the war in Iraq, yes?

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If a neocon whines about big government wealth redistribution, just ask him what he thinks about the portion of that big government that sends aid to Israel.

Heck yes. I will be honest with you though. I, like most Americans believed we were out for WMD. When we didn't find it, we should have left immediately. What really gets me today, is how the war was mis-managed for 3 years with Donald Rumsfield at the helm. I believe that had we installed Petraues even 3 years ago, we wouldn't be throwing 9 billion American dollars down the dark hole today.

So yes, I am upset about all of it. The problem I see today is getting out. I think that the only thing we can hope for is to bring the majority of our troops home, & cut off the Iraqi blank check. After all, it is they that have the oil. If they want to keep some of our troops there, or establish a permanent American base for security reasons, then they can pay for it.
Others have, why not them?

I was born in 1956. 1976 was the first election I was old enough to vote in. I wasn't a homeowner then, though, didn't become one until 1984.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc, like I said. And wait a minute -- what exactly happened? I thought you said -- OK never mind, let me look it up. Back in a mo . . .

Eh, can't find it. Anyway, if it was a cap on the amount of interest you can deduct, unless it was a very LOW cap it would only affect people with very expensive homes. I can't see how that even COULD be devastating.

In any case, though, you cannot observe the change was made, then observe that the economy suffered a downturn, and merely assume that the one caused the other. That's what I mean by P.H.E.P.H.

In fact I do, but I owned a home from 1984 until 1992. So I do know something about home mortgage interest and that deduction, thanks.

Could be he was, but that has little bearing on anything we've been talking about really. His presidency wasn't a big change in policy from what went before.

An expensive home back in those days was 20 -30 for new, thousand dollars. Remember, back during that time interest rates for home mortgages were around 15%, or higher. I can remember talking with one of my friends asking how in the world he was able to get a 10% home mortgage loan. It was a special loan for first time, lower income home buyers. Imagine that, 10% was a great mortgage interest rate back then.

Back then one local bank was offering a 1-1/2 year Certified savings deposit at 18%.

Average income was $12 to $15 K per year. Prior to Carter, there was a cap on mortgage interest rates, of I believe around $6000.00 per year. Carter halved that, to $3000.00 per year. Imagine what a $6000.00 per year does to someone only making 15,000.00 per year, & the difference of what Carter did at $3000.00 per year. Everyone, including those who voted for Jimmy Carter could not stand him after that manuver.

Today, we enjoy much lower mortgage interest rates, with no cap at all. It stimulates the economy & greatly encourages home ownership.

A $20,000 home loan with a 30-year fixed rate at 15% results in a monthly payment of $252.89. The interest over the FIRST year on that loan is less than $3,000; subsequent years would of course be lower. Anyone buying what you yourself call an "expensive" home would, therefore, be able to deduct the entire amount of interest under Carter's tax change.

It's a fact that the economy took a nosedive in the Carter years, which is very unfortunate because it gave us Reagan, but it would seem you're exaggerating the impact of that tax change somewhat, as I suggested.

Here is one link of many for you:

http://www.time.com/timemagazine/art...1854-9,00.html

The above article mentions 16% & higher mortgage rates, along with the many other problems he had. "Jimmy Carter & Inflation" is the title.

I still cannot find the exact amount of the cap he put on. But there are related articles. I can tell you he did it.

It resulted in an enormous tax increase to middle class working Americans. I know I was a home owner.