Low taxes?

If you read the word from the bird in USA Today this week, you may have felt like humming “My Foolish Heart” or finding some doll to play back seat bingo with. It’s 1950 again, daddy-o.
At least, this story says Americans haven’t paid so little in overall taxes since that year.
This is good news, as far as it goes. It means Congress and the Obama administration have so far avoided raising taxes during tough economic times. In fact, taxes have gone down some. But that’s not the whole story.

The USA Today story touches on the rest of it. This piece highlights some of the concerns. A big reason why we’re paying so little in taxes is the recession itself. Many people are unemployed. Others just aren’t buying very much, which means sales tax payments are off.
Then there was that story a few weeks ago about how 47 percent of American households paid no federal income taxes this year. either because of deductions or lack of income.
But the biggest concern is a national debt that is approaching $13 trillion.
Many of this year’s tax breaks are set to expire in 2011. It simply isn’t feasible to keep spending so much more than the government takes in. That’s too bad, because the tax cuts really have helped get the economy moving again.
By the way, in case you’re still pining for 1950, consider that the lowest marginal tax rate that year was 20 percent. If you made $6,000, you had to pay 30 percent. At $16,000, Uncle Sam took half your money, and the highest marginal rate was 91 percent for people earning $200,000.
Tea partiers would have had fun with Harry Truman.