Dear editor,
Which tax rate collects more income taxes for the federal government, a 0 percent or a 100 percent tax rate? Neither percentage collects any taxes, unless you are willing to work for nothing!
Today's Democrats will not let you survive off nothing because they will give you a government check or anything else to buy your vote — aka pandering for the vote.
This is not to be confused with being truly disabled. If you are able to work, you should work in a socialized society. Spreading the work spreads the wealth.
But at what point does a high tax rate discourage work?
Before Reagan became president, the tax rate was 90 percent when your income reached a certain level. Reagan as a movie actor said, "Why would I choose to work and only keep 10 percent of my money,” so he would quit working at that point and just enjoyed his time off until the next tax year.
But many of the people who worked behind the scenes to make movies did not have this luxury and might have to work on "B"-type movies to keep working while likely making less money.
When Reagan became president, he implemented the Laffer tax curve, reducing taxes to 22 percent, and the labor participation rate index went from 63 percent to almost 67 percent during a time the baby boomers (a population boom) were entering the labor force.
This actually made this number much less than what it should have been because of the larger numbers of people entering the work force.
History repeated itself when Newt Gingrich forced a Republican budget of reduced taxes onto President Bill Clinton and the labor participation rate again rose from 66 percent to 68 percent with four years of an almost deficit neutral budget.
Under [President] Obama, [there were] higher taxes, increased entitlement spending, another entitlement being health care, and the job participation rate went from 65.8 percent to 62.8 percent with a $9 trillion deficit, raising our debt from $10.5 to $19.5 trillion.
Also, remember a part-time job counts as employment, as do two part-time jobs to pay your bills, and the business part of Obamacare was postponed by Obama until after he had left office.
You want to bring Democrats to the table over health care, fully implement Obamacare!
They will be screaming by the end of the year to repel and help Trump replace it with a workable health care system that includes tort reform with other cost-cutting health care measures!
STEVEN KING
Milton
What's your view? Write a letter to the editor.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Remembering the 90 percent tax rate