Rather amusing to hear generalizations from politicians about how taxes must inevitably go against job creation. Here's a quote from Roy Blunt of Missouri, now a senator:
As I spoke with families and employers all over Missouri this last year, I heard one thing repeatedly: Job-killing taxes and uncertainty are the biggest deterrents to job creation.
Law of nature? As incompatible as matter and anti-matter? Apparently not.The lowest unemployment rate in American history, 1%, came at a time of very high taxes: that was the industrial boom of home-front America during World War II. As a writer for The Saturday Evening Post put it in 1943, “An orangutan with winning ways could get a job.”
During the war, income-tax rates on top earners hit 90%.
'Tis true that many downsides went along with the industrial boom that pulled us out of the Depression: high rates of workplace accidents, profligate use of resources, and gross pollution. (When writing about the de-mobilization of surplus after the war, I came across accounts of a munitions factory where the soil was so contaminated it was explosive to a depth of three feet. A place where even angels might fear to tread.)
Outside of meeting an all-out crisis, such a command-and-control economy can't be sustained, nor should it be.
But if a crisis comes that requires total mobilization of human and industrial resources, it's worth remembering that productivity, low unemployment, and high taxes can get along well.
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