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- Uncle Sam Doesn’t Have One Thin Dime for Joe Biden’s $106 Billion War Package
Uncle Sam Doesn’t Have One Thin Dime for Joe Biden’s $106 Billion War Package
by David Stockman LewRockwell.com
When you are faced with an existential threat to your very national survival, this is what you do. You mobilize your economy for all-out struggle and impose heavy-duty “War Taxes” to pay for a dramatic build-up of military capabilities.
For instance, between 1939 and 1945 Federal government receipts rose nearly seven-fold—from $6 billion to $42 billion per year, owing to across-the-board tax increases that took the average income tax rate from 4% to 24% and the top rate to upwards of 90%. Relative to the national economy, Federal receipts (red bars) rose from 6% of GDP to a peak of nearly 20% in 1945.
On top of that came a huge amount of war bonds and borrowing. Accordingly, outlays from taxes and borrowing (blue bars), mostly for military mobilization, rose from less than 10% of GDP in 1940 to a war-time peak of 40% in 1944-1945.