Conceptutally Jonah isn't real Smart

Tom Schaller at the indispensable fivethirtyeight.com had a pretty scorching take down of Jonah's recent USA Today column.   Not quite scorching enough, in my opinion.   Here's a juicy bit:

Hold that thought. Imagine for a moment that Tax Freedom Day was Dec. 31. In other words, picture working 365 days a year for the government. Now, the government would "give" you a place to sleep, food to eat and clothes to wear, but all your income would really be Washington's income to allocate as it saw fit. Some romantics might call this sort of arrangement "socialism" or "communism." But another perfectly good word for it is "slavery" or, if you prefer, involuntary servitude. Now, no one is proposing any such arrangement. But it's an important point conceptually. A 100% tax rate would be tyrannical not just because you have a right to own what you create, but because the government would necessarily decide what you can and can't have. 

 Wow!  Who'd a thunk it?  Taxes are conceptually the same as slavery.   His point is that Tea Partiers get that concept and the rest of us don't.   Okay, maybe if we think about the concept for a minute we'll understand it.  If 100% taxes equals 100% slavery, then zero taxes would be conceptually equal 100% freedom,   Awesome!   Of course, we'd have to do without the stuff we get with our taxes.  Like roads (most of them), police and fire protection, sewers (in most places), a system to ensure food safety, a system to ensure business contracts are enforced in the future, most education, nifty devices like GPS navigation, the Internet, and even computers.  And of course, we wouldn't have a military to prevent the Canadians from coming down here and taking all of our stuff.   In fact, there'd be no real way to prevent anyone bigger and stronger than us from physically enslaving us.   But we'd be conceptually 100% free.   And he gets paid to write this shit?  

It gets better, but not a whole lot.

Indeed, since 1950, no matter where their tax rates have been, from as low as 28% to as high as 91%, the government's take has held at about 19.5% of GDP, suggesting that squeezing taxpayers harder doesn't necessarily yield more juice. 

Jonah, please tell me you're not really that dumb.   The "tax rate" has never, ever been 91% or even 28% for that matter.  The 91% was the top marginal rate in 1951.   That is, back then income over $400,000 was taxed at that rate.   Income below that amount was taxed at lower rates.   That's about $3.2 million in today's dollars, which would be in the top 1% of filers today, and ever fewer back then.   Yet, he's asserting that total federal tax revenue has nothing to do with corporate tax rates, excise taxes, payroll taxes, tarrifs, all the lower marginal rates that the vast majority of filers pay, or even the economy in general.    Goldberg is saying all federal tax revenue is correlated only to the top marginal tax rate that applies a tiny fraction of tax payers and only to part of their income.  That's too absurd for words.   Goldberg is right.  Liberals don't "get" his concepts, because he builds them on false premises.