Relative party movement

To the editor:

Galileo Galilei was first to recognize that motion is relative to one’s frame of reference. For example, a car moving at 50 mph viewed from a train going 50 mph either appears to be standing still or moving at 100 mph. 

This principle is Galilean Relativity.

I believe Galileo’s insight explains why MAGA Republicans believe Democrats, whose policies have shifted right for decades, are “communists." FDR proposed a 100 percent top tax rate, telling Congress in 1942, “no American citizen ought to have a net income, after he has paid his taxes, of more than $25,000 a year ($350,000 today)." 

He settled for a 94 percent top rate which had Americans making over $250,000 in 1944 — $3.2 million today — paying 69 percent of their incomes in federal taxes, after exploiting every loophole.  Today, the highest effective rate is roughly between 25 and 33 percent and some billionaires routinely pay no taxes at all.

JFK proposed, and LBJ passed the Revenue Act of 1964 cutting the top rate to 70 percent for individuals and corporate taxes from 52 percent to 48 percent.  After Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush slashed tax rates by more than half, Bill Clinton only modestly raised the top rate from 31 percent to 39.6 percent and corporate rates from 34 percent to 38 percent.

Barack Obama promised to roll back GW Bush’s tax cuts, but left most cuts intact and Joe Biden proposed several progressive tax hikes, but none materialized. Democrats also allowed deregulation, weakened labor laws, welfare “reform," corporate mergers, acquisitions and more. 

Despite moving significantly right, Democrats are viewed as extremists by MAGA because they moved right, further and faster. Today, Ronald Reagan, who called immigrants “one of the most important sources of American greatness," and Richard Nixon, a self-identified “Keynesian in economics," would be considered Marxists by MAGA. 

Galileo was right – all movement is relative. 

Joseph Cannisi