90%, wow. Then their Grandchildren end up on welfare.
And we talk about building generational wealth, how was the Rogers family ever supposed to build generational wealth?
It is sad.
What's sad is your inability to understand concepts like "top marginal tax rate," Tony.
From 1951 to 1963, the top rate was either 91% or 92%:
The top marginal tax rate in 1960 was 91%, which applied to income over $200,000 (for single filers) or $400,000 (for married filers) – thresholds which correspond to approximately $1.5 million and $3 million, respectively, in today's dollars. Approximately 0.00235% of households had income taxed at the top rate.
A taxpayer at the very bottom of the top 1% (in other words, one who is right on the boundary between the 98th and 99th percentiles) had a nominal income of $24,435, or about $190,000 in today’s dollars. (In 2008, this figure was nominally $380,354, or $400,000 in current dollars.)
In other words, that tax rate didn't kick in until you made over $200,000 (or for Roy and Dale, $400,000) and only applied to each dollar after that. The original amount was taxed at a lower rate.
Are you telling me that if you, Tony, made $1.5 million, that you could not "build wealth" if the next million you made were taxed at 91%?
Our millionaires were not suffering, Tony. Nor was Roy Rogers, whose estate was worth the equivalent of $150,000,000 in today's money when he died.
If their grandchildren ended up on welfare, it is not because of a failure to build wealth during Rogers' lifetime!
But I'd love to see evidence that that happened. It's possible, but I'm skeptical that it happened to all of them - and there were a lot!
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