Fair's Fare

Mulvaney justified cutting the social safety net, and the scientific one too, by describing this budget as "taxpayer friendly". Clearly, a swipe at Romney's 47% diatribe.

Well, here's some factoids. The current income tax is the result of the 16th amendment. The first tax levels

Later that year, Congress enacted the Revenue Act of 1913. The tax ranged from 1% on income exceeding $3,000 to 7% on incomes exceeding $500,000.

Now, that's really progressive: 7 times higher for the rich. Moreover, the median income (to the nearest available year) was

According to a U.S. News and World Reports article comparing income in 1915 and 2015, "back in 1915 . . . you were doing about average if you were making $687 a year, according to the Census. That is, if you were a man. If you were a woman, cut that number by about half."

So, income tax didn't kick in until well above the 50th percentile. Way, way above. And that assumes the original used "average" as median rather than mean. Unlikely, so the median wage was almost certainly even less.

Any way you cut it, the 47% have been with us since the beginning of income taxation.