@calvinhobbesliker:
Where did you get that FDR wanted a 100% income tax?
The Mackinac Institute’s essay about FDR–entitled “Great Myths of the Great Depression”–contains the following text:
As pointed out earlier in this essay, Herbert Hoover’s own version of a “New Deal” had hiked the top marginal income tax rate from 24 percent to 63 percent in 1932. But he was a piker compared to his tax-happy successor. Under Roosevelt, the top rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. Economic historian Burton Folsom notes that in 1941 Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5 percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000. “Why not?” he said, when an advisor questioned the idea.[40]
After that confiscatory proposal failed, Roosevelt issued an executive order to tax all income over $25,000 at the astonishing rate of 100 percent. He also promoted the lowering of the personal exemption to only $600, a tactic that pushed most American families into paying at least some income tax for the first time. Shortly thereafter, Congress rescinded the executive order, but went along with the reduction of the personal exemption.[41]
Sources 40 and 41 from the above text are from the following:
Burton Folsom, “What’s Wrong With The Progressive Income Tax?”, Viewpoint on Public Issues, No. 99-18, May 3, 1999, Mackinac Center for Public Policy, Midland, Michigan.