Was Eisenhower more of a socialist than Bernie Sanders?
Saturday night, during the second Democratic presidential debate, when candidate Bernie Sanders was asked how high he intends to raise taxes, the Independent Senator from Vermont said his campaign 鈥渉asn鈥檛 come up with an exact number yet.鈥�
鈥淏ut it will not be as high,鈥� Sen. Sanders added, 鈥渁s the number under Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was 90 percent,鈥� prompting a chuckle from moderators.
Sanders said he isn鈥檛 鈥渢hat much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower鈥� and the room erupted as if on cue, like a sitcom laugh track, and the camera turned to a bemused Hillary Clinton before panning out to show the audience cracking-up to the point of elation.
Sanders, who describes himself as a "democratic socialist," has been known to draw this kind of reaction from crowds. But it wasn鈥檛 the first time Sanders invoked Eisenhower while promising to increase taxes on the nation鈥檚 wealthiest, and the comparison holds true,
As Politifact reports, during Eisenhower鈥檚 two-term presidency from 1953 to 1961, the top marginal tax rate, which affects the highest earning bracket, It applied to individuals with an annual income of $200,000 or more, and couples whose combined earnings was equal to or greater than $400,000. Accounting for inflation, in 2015 those numbers would be the equivalent of about $1.7 million for individuals and $3.4 million per couple.
Today, the top marginal tax rate in 2015 is about 39.6 percent and applies to individuals with an annual income of $413,200 or higher, and couples who make $464,850 or more. The equivalent of these earners in 1954 would have been placed in the 72 percent and 75 percent tax brackets, respectively, leaving that heavy 91 percent rate for the mid-century relative-counterparts to our present-day "1%" of wealthiest Americans.
And that is Sanders鈥檚 point. Under Eisenhower, taxes were higher for the upper-class, who weren鈥檛 as rich as America鈥檚 wealthiest today.
Also, historians would be quick to point out, one of Eisenhower's greatest achievements as president was the creation of the Interstate Highway System 鈥� a massive civic infrastructure project that cost the equivalent of more than $500 billion听in today's dollars.听Also, in his farewell address, Eisenhower warned the country about the growth of the military-industrial complex, a phrase now decidedly associated with liberalism.
And yet the former World War II general and Republican president also听听and听stepped up aggression against the Soviets and their allies by adopting the "Domino Theory" of foreign policy, an approach that would ultimately draw the United States into conflict in Vietnam.听
Of course, as many pundits have pointed out throughout the course of the current campaign,听
In a recent interview with The New York Times, sociology professor Lane Kenworthy of University of California at San Diego said he thinks Sanders鈥檚 use of the word "socialism" is, 鈥渃ausing much more confusion than it is adding value.鈥� Mr. Kenworthy suggested a more fitting term for Sanders would be 鈥渄emocratic socialist capitalist,鈥� which essentially means 鈥渧ery liberal.鈥�
In a 1954 letter to his brother, Edgar, President Eisenhower wrote of his opposition to centralizing US governmental functions more than necessary. But Eisenhower acknowledged that 鈥渢o attain any success it is quite clear that the Federal government cannot avoid or escape responsibilities which the mass of the people firmly believe should be undertaken by it.鈥�
