To pay for WWII, the US had a 90% federal tax bracket that effectively capped yearly income. In the 1950s, a CEO could only earn the equivalent of 5mil a year in 2026 dollars. That is why vacation destinations used to boom. Why people could take road trips because work wasn't understaffed. How we funded interstates and modern infrastructure. It's why the one parent household existed. CEO's don't underpay, understaff, or outsource when it doesn't personally make themselves richer.

This is what mcarthyism was really about. A handful of rich people calling any taxes that apply to them a form of communism. That group has basically won. They repealed the taxes and regulations that ended the great depression and now we are entering another depression. This new one will last until we vote to bring back the federal income tax policies and post-1929 financial regulations of the 1950s.