{"id":2659503,"date":"2026-09-12T19:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-09-12T23:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/outrageous-taxation-has-destroyed-american-lives-going-back-decades\/"},"modified":"2026-09-12T19:12:47","modified_gmt":"2026-09-12T23:12:47","slug":"outrageous-taxation-has-destroyed-american-lives-going-back-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/outrageous-taxation-has-destroyed-american-lives-going-back-decades\/","title":{"rendered":"Outrageous Taxation Has Destroyed American Lives Going Back Decades"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Foutrageous-taxation-has-destroyed-american-lives-going-back-decades%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2659503&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The content discusses the history and impact of taxes on individuals and economies. It highlights that taxes have historically been a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trumps-earlier-tariff-policy-could-help-small-businesses-reshore\/\" title=\"Trump&#039;s Earlier Tariff Policy Could Help Small Businesses Reshore\">important financial burden<\/a>, wiht rates reaching as high as 91% in mid-20th century America, prompting some triumphant individuals to seek tax shelters or exile. The piece explains how tax cuts advocated by leaders like John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan aimed to boost economic growth, often citing the idea that &#8220;a rising tide lifts all boats.&#8221; It also draws parallels to past instances, such as Britain\u2019s efforts to reduce taxes during depressions, and emphasizes that excessive taxation can hinder economic activity by discouraging investment and prompting tax exiles. The article notes that, today, Americans pay more in taxes than they spend on essential needs like food, clothing, and housing, describing the government as &#8220;big and bloated.&#8221; it advocates for lower taxes as a way to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidens-abuse-of-defense-production-act-will-drive-gas-prices-even-higher\/\" title=\"Biden\u2019s Abuse Of Defense Production Act Will Drive Gas Prices Even ...er\">promote economic prosperity<\/a> and individual freedom, warning against the long-term effects of excessive government spending and regulation.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<section> \t\t\t\t<script>console.log(\"ad slot (AC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC3)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (IC4)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_0)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_1)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_2)\")<\/script><script>console.log(\"ad slot (REP_3)\")<\/script><\/p>\n<p>Taxes, a recent report confirmed, have become the biggest bill for the average American. They cost more than housing, food, and other necessities.<\/p>\n<p>Yet this has been apparent for decades, affecting the lifestyles of millions of Americans, as well as millions of others living in other advanced welfare state societies.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1940s and 1950s, progressive tax rates in the United States could reach 91 percent. Highly successful people stopped working once they reached the 91 percent rate in a tax year.<\/p>\n<p>No matter how much you love your work, does it make sense to keep working if you are only allowed to keep nine cents out of a dollar? For many hardworking people, the answer was no.<\/p>\n<p>So comedian Jack Benny got a lower rate by incorporating. By claiming all his income was corporate, and after waging a battle in tax court over years, Benny achieved a lower rate in a famous 1955 court decision.<\/p>\n<p>But relief was coming for the rest of us.<\/p>\n<p>In the early 1960s, President John Kennedy initially believed that cutting taxes was unjust and favored the rich. But Kennedy, a Democrat, found the nation in a recession.<\/p>\n<p>After researching taxes, Kennedy changed. In the last months of his life, President Kennedy realized high taxes hurt the economy. Hence, they hurt everyone.<\/p>\n<p>In a famous address in New York, a few months before his death, Kennedy called for a tax cut because it would be best for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>He said, \u201cA rising tide lifts all boats.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A strong economy followed the cuts until the Vietnam War short-circuited the growth later that decade. To pay for the huge war and welfare spending of the 1960s and 1970s \u2014 not only did the Vietnam War go longer and end up more expensive than anticipated, but the startup costs for Medicare were much higher than quoted \u2014 tax rates rose again in the 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>President Ronald Reagan, in pushing for his tax cuts in the 1980s, cited Kennedy. Those <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >arguments angered class warfare critics<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>They insisted low taxes were a strategy of helping the rich at the expense of the rest of us. But while it may make some people feel good knowing that rich people pay through the nose, the majority of Americans still paid higher taxes in the 1970s, directly and indirectly, owing to inflation, which is the ultimate tax.<\/p>\n<p>Excessive government spending and regulation, which inevitably leads to more taxation under all governments, has been going on for a long time in almost every democracy.<\/p>\n<p>In \u201cthe hungry 40s,\u201d a period of the 19th century in early Victorian Britain when the nation was going through a depression, average people paid a high percentage of their income for food.<\/p>\n<p>Their daily bread was taxed through the Corn Laws \u2014 a series of rules on how taxes applied to imported grains. Eventually in 1846, the tax was ended through the actions of the prime minister, Sir Robert Peel \u2014 who broke with his Tory Party and was driven out of it by a young Benjamin Disraeli \u2014 and the pressure he felt from a group of radical MPs, the Manchester School.<\/p>\n<p>Cutting a vital tax was one factor in leading Britain out of depression.<\/p>\n<p>Peel, a \u201cliberal conservative,\u201d was the teacher of an up-and-coming Conservative who later became a classical liberal, William Gladstone.<\/p>\n<p>Gladstone became one of Britain\u2019s most successful Chancellors of the Exchequer. He was famous for lean budgets and several times tried to abolish the income tax \u2014 a good way of increasing buying power in any age. Peel believed that the way out of a depression was to keep costs for the average person as low as possible, and taxes were a big cost. This was an interesting, timeless observation in modern welfare-and-warfare states, especially those in the middle of or just out of a war.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of World War I, with the United States in the midst of a depression, many well-heeled taxpayers wouldn\u2019t invest in stocks because tax rates were high. They started putting their money in tax shelters and not stocks, looking to escape excessive rates of taxation.<\/p>\n<p>The Treasury secretaries of both the outgoing Wilson administration and incoming Harding administration complained that high taxes were wrecking the economy \u2014 that it was starved for capital because the rich preferred to keep their money in tax shelters.<\/p>\n<p>Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon, in his brilliant, little-known book \u201cTaxation,\u201d called for lower taxation and reduced spending as strategies to persuade the rich to stop locking up their money in municipal bonds or worse.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, excessive taxes have driven many successful people into becoming tax exiles. But not all.<\/p>\n<p>James Herriot, the wonderful British author of the \u201cAll Creatures Great and Small\u201d books, never got rich from his bestselling books and popular television shows. Herriot, unlike some other British high earners, would not leave his beloved home. He paid an 83 percent tax rate.<\/p>\n<p>When interviewed by journalist Ray Bennett, Herriot, at age 62, was still a full-time working veterinarian, although he was advised to become a tax exile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s not many of me left in this country,\u201d he said. \u201cMost bestselling authors are away in Ireland, where they pay no tax at all; in Jersey, where they pay 10%; or on the Isle of Man, where it\u2019s much the same. But I stay here and pay my 83%. I like it here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There were more episodes of this \u201cwe must seek shelter for our wealth or we\u2019ll lose it\u201d philosophy in the 1960s and 1970s.<\/p>\n<p>As a young reporter working for Financial Planning Magazine, I got a taste of this. I remember financial professionals trying to sell well-heeled investors all manner of seemingly bad investments, often in the form of limited partnerships. They were everything from low-income housing to Broadway shows \u2014 of the latter, a show business expert once told me that putting money in the Great White Way was \u201ca great way to lose money\u201d since a supermajority of shows ran in the red.<\/p>\n<p>But they had something going for them no matter how egregious their losses \u2014 they were great tax write-offs.<\/p>\n<p>Taxes, despite several so-called \u201clow tax\u201d administrations, remain a problem. Indeed, Americans now pay more in taxes than they spend on many basic necessities, and the growing tax burden shows how the government has become \u201cso big and bloated,\u201d writes economist Stephen Moore.<\/p>\n<p>He cited a chart from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity estimating Americans paid about $8.19 trillion in taxes in 2025, compared with roughly $7.39 trillion spent on food, clothing, and housing combined.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGovernment has become so big and bloated that taxes cost more than life\u2019s basic necessities. Americans pay more in taxes than they spend on food, clothing and shelter combined,\u201d Moore adds.<\/p>\n<p>He says Americans should be \u201coutraged,\u201d but maybe they\u2019re not. Many vote for incumbents.<\/p>\n<p>And few can pull a Jack Benny.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p><i><b>The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either d or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/submitop-ed\/\">here<\/a>.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n<div style=\"background-color: #f7f7f7; color: #171717; display: flex;font-size: 16px;font-weight: 600;line-height: 1.5;margin: 24px 0;padding: 18px 20px 18px 30px;text-align: left;\">\n<div style=\"align-self: stretch;border-left: 3px solid #171717;flex-shrink: 0;padding-left: 20px;\"><\/div>\n<p><a style=\"text-decoration: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/\">Choose The Western Journal as your preferred source on Google and never miss reporting that defends truth, protects freedom, and advances Western civilization<\/a><\/div>\n<p style=\"border: 1px solid #f5f5f5; padding: 16px;\">Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.westernjournal.com\/advertise-us\/?wj_source=article\">Advertise Today<\/a>.<\/p>\n<div style=\"position: relative;\">\n<div class=\"ff-fancy-header-container\"> \t\t\t \t<\/div>\n<div class=\"entry-submit-correction inner-content\">\n<div class=\"correction-form\">\n<form style=\"display: none;\">\n<div class=\"sc-name-field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* Name<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"name\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<div class=\"sc--field\"> \t\t\t\t\t\t<label>* <\/label> \t\t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"text\" name=\"\" required> \t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<label>* Message<\/label> \t\t\t\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t<textarea name=\"message\" required><\/textarea> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"required-message\" style=\"display: none; padding-bottom: 15px;\">* All fields are required.<\/div>\n<p> \t\t\t\t\t<input type=\"submit\" value=\"Submit\" onclick=\"event.preventDefault(); firefly_sc();\"> \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<div class=\"firefly-sc-confirm\" style=\"display: none;\">Success!<\/div>\n<\/p><\/form>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p> \t\t<script> \t\t\tfunction firefly_sc() { \t\t\t\tif( typeof window.captchaPublicKey == typeof undefined ){ \t\t\t\t\tconsole.error('window.captchaPublicKey is not defined'); \t\t\t\t} \t\t\t\tgrecaptcha.execute( window.captchaPublicKey, { action: 'submit_correction' } ).then( function( token ) { \t\t\t\t\tvar opts = { \t\t\t\t\t\taction:    'firefly_sc_submit', \t\t\t\t\t\tname:      document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"name\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\t:     document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tmessage:   document.querySelector( '.entry-submit-correction [name=\"message\"]' ).value, \t\t\t\t\t\tpost_id:   firefly_post_id, \t\t\t\t\t\tcap_token: token \t\t\t\t\t}  \t\t\t\t\tvar inputs = [ 'name', '', 'message' ];  \t\t\t\t\tfor( var i = 0; i < inputs.length; i++ ) if( ! 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