>>21Republican President Dwight Eisenhower’s idea of a significant marginal rate cut was to push the top rate down to 91 percent from 92 percent. Corporate taxes hit 50 percent. Jobs proliferated, wages rose, and the economy prospered. Lately, several documentaries have tried to capture the period, including “Something Ventured,” about how the technology boom got its start.
The implications of this 1950s narrative are clear. High tax rates and the redistribution they might yield can stabilize us now, giving the economy “good directional stability,” to use an industry phrase for a 1950s car, the Nash Metropolitan. High rates can accelerate growth.