I’m With My Conservative Friends, Bring Back The 1950′s (as seen on TV)
A nation of 2 parent homes, white picket fences on every street, the local cop on foot-patrol who stops at your door from time to time just to say, “Hi”…I can get on-board with all of it.
Now, if my conservative friends will just meet me half way and agree to accept the 90% tax rate for the wealthiest Americans that was also in place in the 1950′s, and join me in praising the labor unions which were strong enough back then to grow our middle class to it’s strongest position ever (which kept consumer spending and our economy strong by the way), we’ll have peace and harmony once again.
Sure, there will be some pesky issues to handle that weren’t being addressed properly back then, but I’m confident that the women and minority groups can get their voices heard in a peaceful manner on those.
And speaking of women, hey gals, I’m gonna ask you to take one for the team here and let the state own your body. If we’re serious about making this fantasy-America return to the 1950′s, we’ll need to give conservatives their way on the abortion issue.
I know that’s a biggie for you, but just think of what we’ll get in exchange for your sacrifice: Universal Health care, Better Educations (perhaps even including free Universities nationwide) and Schools, Expansive and freshly paved highways from coast to coast (how pretty will we be then?), A fresh coat of paint for every bridge in the country, An end to borrowing money from China in order to fund our misadventures…the list goes on and on.
Yes, by once again taxing the wealthiest Americans at 90% we could pay for all of that stuff, and a whole lot more.
Sure, some of you girls may get stuck in loveless marriages and living lives that you never wanted, being forced to care for snot-nosed brats you don’t like, but the Valium you’ll need to get through the day (just like Grandma used to use) will be free! Come on, that’s a good deal.
Oh, I know there will be some nay-sayers, probably among wealthy conservatives who won’t like the idea of paying all those taxes again, but the proof is in the pudding (as people used to say in the 1950′s television-land) that it’s the best thing for our country, and at the end of the day aren’t we all good American patriots? So, I’m sure the nay-sayers will ultimately join in and buck up to do their part.
Besides, all of those twisted arguments against high taxes on the rich, that have been propagated for years to reduce taxes for the rich, have no true foundations in reality. For example, they often argue that the high taxes:
- deter people from wanting to earn more
- strangle small businesses
- cost jobs (related to the strangling of small businesses above)
- reduce consumer spending and retard the economy
However, in 1950′s America nobody stopped chasing wealth. The Kennedy’s, Rockefellers, Mellons and so-on continued to grow their family fortunes despite the tax rates. And heck, more middle class working Americans believed that they too could become wealthy one day and as a result were inspired to work harder to obtain wealth. That was good for business.
Every small town and metropolitan neighborhood in the country had Mom-n-Pop stores in it back then. Small businesses were thriving, despite the higher taxes on the uber-rich. And there were jobs-o-plenty, which paid decent wages that allowed families to get by on a single income, leaving one parent free to stay home and raise the children. Mostly because with stronger unions it wasn’t so easy for profitable companies to hide their money or move jobs overseas or reduce labor forces and demand higher productivity out of the workers left.
1950's Advertising
And the economy thrived from all of those small businesses selling the latest Vitameatavegimins and Rocket-like Aluminum-laminated appliances made by Americans to the same working Americans who wanted the shiny new things for their homes and yards. Money was moving everywhere back then.
Then, in the mid-1960′s the tax rate was lowered to 70% and guess what? That’s right, we began going through some tumultuous times here in America, but the bottom didn’t really drop out on us until the 1980′s when one party (and I’m not going to name names here) decided that drastically reducing taxes on the wealthiest Americans all the way down to 28%, curtailing regulations on industry, and busting the labor unions were the vogue things to do.
That’s when we finally lost all of those small Mom-n-Pop businesses and decent jobs to large retail corporations who shipped their products in from places like Taiwan and China, killing both the small business retailer and American manufacturing in a single blow. They actually broke the system that sustained their own fantasy-America.
But this isn’t about pointing fingers. This is about Americans uniting once again and making things better for all of us. So I offer my hand to my conservative friends, and hope my liberal friends will join me in saying let’s bring back the 1950′s America (as seen on TV) together.
Let’s have all of the goodies that the fantasy can offer, paid for by the return of 90% tax rates on the rich and the sweat of unionized working Americans. We’ll penalize those (including corporations) non-patriots who try to undermine our America by hiding money or jobs offshore, and with a little bit of work (and a lot of free narcotics) I think we might be able to get the majority of gals to come along on the abortion thing too.
What do you say?
About Scott Bannon
A conservative liberal with a perspicuous perspective on American politics.
Scott's writings have been published on dozens of news and opinion outlets both online and off.
7 Responses to “I’m With My Conservative Friends, Bring Back The 1950′s (as seen on TV)”
By Jennifer Lancey | Reply to article
I must say this is a great article i enjoyed reading it keep the good work
Reply to this specific comment
By David Chaffee | Reply to article
Historical data proves that increasing taxes does not increase federal revenue. Lowering taxes creates jobs and increases revenue. The article purposely leaves out the Carter administration when it talks about the 80′s. Carter pushed the same views as this article does which leads to high unemployment, thus thrusting Reagan into office in 1981. Regan lowered taxes, revenue went up, unemployment went down. Then entire article is written with a selective memory of history. This might as well be talking points for a political party.
Reply to this specific comment
By Richard Kerr | Reply to article
To David Chaffee, I think you may be the one with selective memory on history. Carter lost any chance at re-election for several reasons, but his views on taxes weren’t anywhere near the top of that list.
A splintered Democratic party after the Carter / Kennedy battles, the Panama Canal affair, long lines and short supplies at the Gas stations, the Iran hostages…people were upset over a lot and placed the blame with Carter’s administration, but taxes weren’t the common rallying cry.
And as for Regan increasing jobs, that’s true, of course the obvious point you leave out is that the majority of those jobs were low paying and forced individuals to hold second jobs just to get by.
I remember looking for work in the 80′s, the classifieds were long, with page after page of $3 per hour security guard and retail clerk positions. I can also remember some of the friends I made at one job I held in the 80′s, one of them had been a Boilermaker (Iron worker) and one had been a mechanic for a railroad company, I met them both as we worked side by side bagging groceries, because those were the great types of jobs Regan’s policies created in America.
It’s fair to claim great job creation under Regan, just take honest ownership of the quality of jobs that were created too, because they were low.
Reply to this specific comment
By Marcus Pun | Reply to article
Actually as proved during Clinton and pre Reagan years, increased taxes did increase revenue. Decreasing taxes increased tax revenue only when accompanied by massive deficit spending, as happened during the Reagan and Bush years.
Here’s what I point out.
Clinton, tax hike for wealthy plus regulation = 20 million net new jobs.
Bush, Massive tax cuts, lax regulation, 2 million net new jobs. The Bush CEA predicted that the Bush tax cuts would generate 194,000 new jobs each month. Never happened except for a few months during the housing bubble that the Bush admin and the GOP helped to generate via lax regulation of the financial industry and WTF in the home ownership acts of I think 2004 which specified that zero down payments and bad credit were okay when it came to a home loan. A poinnt of fact. Before Bush only one in 50 home loans were sub prime, and only a few of those were via the CRA.
Reply to this specific comment
jh reply on July 4th, 2010 10:10 pm:
Bush ran a stimulous program for 7 years (low interest, 50% increase in government spending)to hide the negative effects of his tax cuts. He paid off the “have mores” who hired him to loot our country and almost got out before the effects were known.
Reply to this specific comment