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DEMOCRATS- Stealing Your Money Since 1913
Let’s get one thing straight: the federal income tax as we know it today is a 20th-century invention, not some eternal fixture of American life. For the first 137 years of the Republic, the United States ran just fine, fought wars, built railroads, and became the world’s richest nation, mostly without taxing citizens’ wages directly. Then came 1913, the year everything changed.
**The 16th Amendment & the Revenue Act of 1913**
After a Civil War-era income tax (1861–1872) was allowed to expire and an 1894 attempt was struck down by the Supreme Court in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., progressives finally got their wish. On February 3, 1913, the 16th Amendment was ratified:
> “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”
Eight months later, the Revenue Act of 1913 was signed by President Woodrow Wilson, a DEMOCRAT. The tax started small, almost comically so by today’s standards:
- Only 1% on incomes above $3,000 ($4,000 for married couples) ≈ $90,000 and $108,000 in 2025 dollars.
- A “surtax” that climbed to 6% on incomes over $500,000 (about $15 million today).
- Fewer than 3% of Americans even had to file a return.
Politicians swore it would never touch the average worker. Treasury Secretary William McAdoo called it a tax on “the very rich.” Famous last words.
**World War I: The Foot in the Door**
By 1918, the top rate hit 77% to fund the war. Millions of ordinary Americans were dragged into the system for the first time via payroll withholding (yes, withholding started in 1917, not 1943). When the war ended, rates came down, but the precedent was set: Washington now had a permanent claim on your paycheck.
**The New Deal & World War II: From “Rich Only” to Everyone** FDR (DEMOCRATIC) needed cash for his alphabet-soup programs. In 1935, the top rate jumped to 79%. By 1944–1945, it reached a staggering 94% on income over $200,000. More importantly, the tax base exploded. In 1939, about 7% of Americans paid income tax. By 1945, over 70% did. Payroll withholding, made permanent in 1943 under the Current Tax Payment Act, turned employers into unpaid IRS agents and made taxpaying feel inevitable instead of voluntary.
**Post-War: The Permanent Leviathan**
Rates eventually fell (top marginal rate hovered in the 70% range through 1950s–1980), but the system never shrank back to 1913 levels. Every economic crisis, every war, every new federal program became an excuse to keep or raise rates. Reagan’s (Republican) 1986 reform slashed the top rate to 28%, the lowest since the 1920s, but Bill Clinton (DEMOCRAT) raised it to 39.6%, George W. Bush (Republican) cut it to 35%, Obama (DEMOCRAT) to 39.6% again, Trump (Republican) to 37%. The headline rate bounces around, but the core truth remains: the federal government now takes a cut of nearly every dollar most Americans earn.
**The Numbers Today (2025)
- Top federal marginal rate: 37% + 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax for high earners.
- Add state income taxes (0–13.3%) and payroll taxes (15.3% combined, half “paid by employer” in theory).
- The average American now surrenders roughly 30–45% of their income before they even see it.
- The IRS collects over $2.2 trillion in individual income taxes annually, more than the entire federal budget in 1990 (adjusted for inflation).
**The Bottom Line**
In 1913, Americans were promised a tiny tax on the ultra-wealthy that would never grow or touch the working man. One century later, the income tax is the federal government’s largest single revenue source, and withholding makes it almost impossible to escape. The politicians who sold the 16th Amendment as a limited measure on “robber barons created the most efficient wealth-extraction machine in human history.
Democrats-They’ve been stealing your money, legally, since 1913.
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