Art Laffer has a compelling column in the today’s Wall Street Journal discussing how higher tax rates under Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt played an important role in driving the economy into a ditch during the 1930s. The interesting question, of course, is the degree to which President Obama is going to repeat these mistakes. We already see that some of the mistakes that happened during the Great Depression are being replicated, including higher government spending (with a big help from Bush), more government regulation, and protectionism. The good news, so to speak, is that Obama is moving policy in the wrong direction in small steps, whereas Hoover and Roosevelt took giant leaps. So while it is likely that our long-term growth rate will be dampened, hopefully there will not be a lengthy period of economic stagnation:
Is Obama Planning to Repeat the Mistakes of Hoover and Roosevelt?
September 22, 2009 by Dan Mitchell
While Fed policy was undoubtedly important, it was not the primary cause of the Great Depression or the economy’s relapse in 1937. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of June 1930 was the catalyst that got the whole process going. It was the largest single increase in taxes on trade during peacetime and precipitated massive retaliation by foreign governments on U.S. products. Huge federal and state tax increases in 1932 followed the initial decline in the economy thus doubling down on the impact of Smoot-Hawley. There were additional large tax increases in 1936 and 1937 that were the proximate cause of the economy’s relapse in 1937. In 1930-31, during the Hoover administration and in the midst of an economic collapse, there was a very slight increase in tax rates on personal income at both the lowest and highest brackets. The corporate tax rate was also slightly increased to 12% from 11%. But beginning in 1932 the lowest personal income tax rate was raised to 4% from less than one-half of 1% while the highest rate was raised to 63% from 25%. (That’s not a misprint!) The corporate rate was raised to 13.75% from 12%. All sorts of Federal excise taxes too numerous to list were raised as well. The highest inheritance tax rate was also raised in 1932 to 45% from 20% and the gift tax was reinstituted with the highest rate set at 33.5%. But the tax hikes didn’t stop there. In 1934, during the Roosevelt administration, the highest estate tax rate was raised to 60% from 45% and raised again to 70% in 1935. The highest gift tax rate was raised to 45% in 1934 from 33.5% in 1933 and raised again to 52.5% in 1935. The highest corporate tax rate was raised to 15% in 1936 with a surtax on undistributed profits up to 27%. In 1936 the highest personal income tax rate was raised yet again to 79% from 63%—a stifling 216% increase in four years. Finally, in 1937 a 1% employer and a 1% employee tax was placed on all wages up to $3,000. …The damage caused by high taxation during the Great Depression is the real lesson we should learn. A government simply cannot tax a country into prosperity. If there were one warning I’d give to all who will listen, it is that U.S. federal and state tax policies are on an economic crash trajectory today just as they were in the 1930s. Net legislated state-tax increases as a percentage of previous year tax receipts are at 3.1%, their highest level since 1991; the Bush tax cuts are set to expire in 2011; and additional taxes to pay for health-care and the proposed cap-and-trade scheme are on the horizon.
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[...] there is a lot of very bad policy, a nation can suffer a lengthy period of stagnation or decline. Roosevelt and Hoover in the 1930s would be a good (or should we say bad?) example of this worst-case [...]
[...] there is a lot of very bad policy, a nation can suffer a lengthy period of stagnation or decline. Roosevelt and Hoover in the 1930s would be a good (or should we say bad?) example of this worst-case [...]
[...] Depression with their tax-and-spend, interventionist policies (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). But I’ve only once waded into the deeper economic issues. But a new column by [...]
[...] Depression with their tax-and-spend, interventionist policies (see here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). But I’ve only once waded into the deeper economic issues. But a new column by [...]
[...] This was the opposite of the failed Keynesian experiment of the 1930s, when massive increases in government spending failed to boost economic growth. [...]
[...] This was the opposite of the failed Keynesian experiment of the 1930s, when massive increases in government spending failed to boost economic growth. [...]
[...] Since I’m one of those “reality-challenged” people who prefer smaller government, I obviously disagreed with his analysis. But his reference to Hoover set off alarm bells. As I have noted before, Hoover increased the burden of government during his time in office. [...]
[...] Since I’m one of those “reality-challenged” people who prefer smaller government, I obviously disagreed with his analysis. But his reference to Hoover set off alarm bells. As I have noted before, Hoover increased the burden of government during his time in office. [...]
[...] Since I’m one of those “reality-challenged” people who prefer smaller government, I obviously disagree with his analysis. But his reference to Hoover set off alarm bells. As I have noted before, Hoover increased the burden of government during his time in office. [...]
[...] Obamanomics already has failed. It didn’t work for Hoover and Roosevelt. It didn’t work for Bush. It isn’t working in Europe. And now it’s failing for [...]
[...] commented many times about the misguided big-government policies of both Hoover and FDR, so I can say with considerable [...]
[...] commented many times about the misguided big-government policies of both Hoover and FDR, so I can say with considerable [...]
[...] commented many times about the misguided big-government policies of both Hoover and FDR, so I can say with considerable [...]
[...] I’ve commented many times about the misguided big-government policies of both Hoover and FDR, so I can say with considerable [...]
[...] commented many times about a misled big-government policies of both Hoover and FDR, so we can contend with substantial [...]