54 posts tagged “politics”

You have probably heard of the oratorical "oops!" created by Merwin and Ulmer last weekend. If you haven't, here is the long and short of it - in an op-ed piece ode to the fiscal restraint of the GOP, the two party leaders wrote the following:

"like Jews who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves."

As of this writing, Merwin and Ulmer have apologized for their phrasing, but not for the sentiment.

The verity of the statement can be challenged on several levels [1], however that is not what has raised the greatest ire over this piece. Instead, it was the use of the word "Jews" which critics charge is playing to stereotypes [2].

But was it a stereotype? There is a simple test that will answer that question. Simply replace the offending word with "person" [3]. If the sense remains, then the only reason to use the offending word was in order to play to a stereotype. In the Merwin and Ulmer case, the phrase would have worked just as well [4] as

"like people who are wealthy got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves."

Since the sentiment remains, there was no reason to use the word "Jews". Thus, this was a stereotype and should have been avoided [5].

I'll admit a certain amount of sympathy for these two. Growing up, my relatives relished stereotypes (and some of them still do). As a result, my speech patterns are sometimes less than optimal [6]. However, I try to take an extra effort to ensure that what I say isn't obscured by how I say it. In writing, this is relatively easy (simply use the test above). And I heartily recommend the practice to Mssrs. Merwin and Ulmer - and to anyone else who wishes to avoid being thought a bigot.

John

[1] Is it true that one becomes rich by watching the pennies and not the dollars? Is it true that Jim DeMint has watched the pennies? Has he watched them consistently (e.g., by refusing earmarks linked to his party, his state, or his district)? Is it true that earmarks are a serious problem?

[2] Like the statement itself, the verity of the stereotype is not relevant.

[3] Or some other, equally neutral word.

[4] And perhaps better!

[5] Why? Is it because stereotypes are offensive? No, because some can be complimentary (e.g., "rocket science"). Is it because stereotypes are untrue? No, because some are true some of the time. Is it because stereotypes replace thinking with easy categorization? Yes! By relying on stereotypes, you replace people with abstract that may have no basis in reality. And a person (much less a good politician) should know better!

[6] E.g., indiscriminate use of the word "boy" in casual conversation. To many, it is a non-demeaning word; however, certain groups still feel the sting of its lash, a century and more after it should have been retired.

For those who prefer their irony neat:

Heinreich Boere is an admitted hit man for the Nazis. He joined the Waffen SS at age 18 and was charged with killing members of the Dutch resistance. He would shoot people dead with no trial, no warning, and no compunctions. And now he is fighting extradition to a trial for his war crimes:

"Boere's attorneys had appealed that decision to the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, arguing that their client suffers a serious heart condition and that to put him on trial would violate his human rights by putting him in a possibly life-threatening situation."

Italics added; irony left intact.

And for those who prefer it over ice:

The Vatican has opened an exhibit in honor of the 400th anniversary of Galileo's publication of Siderius Nuncius, his treatise that relates his discovery of the Galilean moons of Jupiter [1]. During the opening, a reporter asked the Vatican's top Culture Official, Monsignor Gianfranco Ravasi, about the Church's 17th century condemnation of Galileo. Here's what he had to say:

"I continue to believe that it's necessary to look more to the future."

John

[1] Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.

The recent developments in the Roman Polanski case have shed some interesting light on justice and law in different places around the world [1]. The first, and in many ways the most interesting, is the difference in France's handling of Polanski and that of the USA and Switzerland. Despite having a well-known address in France, Polanski was essentially at liberty in that country because of a peculiarity in their laws that allows them to refuse to extradite their own citizens [2]; instead, the country that wants the citizen must allow the citizen to be tried in France, by a French jury, under French law [3]. Because of Polanski's status as a filmmaker, it was unlikely that he would be convicted in France for rape [4]. So California waited until Polanski went to a country that did allow extradition to the USA, and then pounced. Thus we have the difference in US laws (everyone is nominally equal even if some do manage to be more equal than others [5]) and those in France (if you are important enough, you are explicitly unequal).

The next most interesting point about the case is the reaction of the victim, Samantha Gailey (now Gaimer). She has said several times that the press has made her life a living hell, and that the prosecution and the prosecutors have only made things worse. Her feeling is that he has suffered enough [6]. And she has a valid point - is it justice to subject her to the trauma of a trial if she doesn't want one? That was one of the reasons that the prosecutors agreed to the original plea bargain. She has even recently filed suit to have the case dismissed. In many places, her desire would allow the charges to be dropped. (Of course, in other places, she would have been whipped for allowing herself to be raped.) However, the judge has the ultimate right in US courts to decide if the bargain is just - or at least, just legal.

And then there is the reaction of various folks to the charge. Some, such as Whoopi Goldberg, claim that it wasn't "rape, rape"; i.e., that it is a lesser offence because drugs were used instead of violence. Others claim that his work since then excuses the rape. And still others claim that it wasn't rape at all. Frankly, I don't understand that last position. Even if we allow that a 13 year old may be capable of deciding whether or not to have sex, there's still the evidence of the drugs and Polanski's refusal to take no for an answer.

Finally, there is the question of the charges themselves. Polanski was originally charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, and lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14; all but the last charge were dismissed under the plea bargain. Of those, the sodomy and perversion charges are no longer on the books. So, if the prosecution were to start all over, he could only be charged with rape by use of drugs, furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, and lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14. That's enough rope to hang him with (especially in prison), but it is interesting how the framework of justice has changed over the years.

John

[1] In case you have been living under a rock [a], the particulars are as follows. In 1977, Polanski and 13 year old Samantha Gailey went to Jack Nicholson's house as part of a photo shoot that Polanski claimed was for Vogue magazine. During the shoot, Polanski plied Gailey with champagne mixed with Quaaludes. He then had sex with Gailey, despite her pleas to stop. Gailey told her mother, who informed the police. Polanski was arrested and charged with statutory rape. In a plea deal, he agreed to plead guilty in exchange for five of the six counts against him being dismissed. He underwent psychiatric evaluation at Chino State Prison, and was expected to return for sentencing. However, he heard that the judge had decided to throw out the plea deal and to place him into prison; Polanski then fled the country. In 2008, a filmmaker caught one of the DAs associated with the case bragging about lying to the judge in order to get Polanski into prison. Polanski then filed suit to get the the conviction set aside; instead, he was arrested on a fugitive warrant while on a visit to Switzerland.

[2] Polanski holds citizenship in France and Poland. Prior to his guilty plea, he had residency in the USA and Great Britain.

[3] Which, in many cases, means that the case is no case. Many things that are unlawful in the US (e.g., bribery, enjoyment of Jerry Lewis films) are legal or at least socially acceptable in France.

[4] Don't believe me? Consider the statements of the French Minister for Culture:  "There are concerns over the absolutely incredible media lynching to which Roman Polanski was subjected 30 years ago...The manner in which the (legal) proceedings took place also raises a certain number of questions, to say the least"
 
[5] Geek points for the reference!

[6] Part of that suffering was in the form of a cash settlement to her family; as of this writing, some $600,000US remains unpaid.

[a] And if you have been, is there enough room for me to move in? I'll cook!

In case you haven't heard, there is a new scandal brewing at ACORN. Two young activists [1] dressed up as a stereotypical pimp and prostitute and went into several ACORN offices around the country and asked for advice on bringing young women into the country to act as prostitutes, getting a small business loan for their brothel, and how to avoid paying taxes to the IRS.

Now, looking at the image above, I gotta say that my first reaction [2] would be to ask “Where’s Mr. Funt?” [3]. However, it appears that the ACORN people actually gave these two the advice that they sought [4]. And, if we take the activists at their word, this happened not once, but several times in different ACORN offices across the country.

The most charitable reading is that the ACORN folks had the same reaction that I did and decided to prank the pranksters. However, if that is the case, it was criminally stupid (at best), as it exposes ACORN to RICO charges. The worst possible reading is that ACORN really does have that many people working for it that want to help our worst elements become our worst, rich elements.

In either case, it seems as if it is time and then some  for a thorough clean up at ACORN’s central office. If they don’t stop these nuts from running the place, then who knows what other shady practices will grow?

John

[1] This isn’t a dirty word, really. It just means “people that care. A lot.”

[2] After I stopped laughing

[3] Geek points for the reference!

[4] E.g., “Don’t make big deposits into a single account. Get accounts in two different banks and make small deposits” (paraphrased). 

Last night, President Obama gave a speech to a joint session of Congress [1]. In that speech, he called for action on the health care bills currently languishing in Congress. However, his speech will be remembered not for anything that he said, but for something that Representative Joe Wilson said - “You lie!”.

We will leave the verity of Rep. Wilson’s outburst to the side for now [2].What is important is the matter of “Was his behavior appropriate?” That the out party rarely accords the President a warm welcome during his speeches is hardly new. The Democrats yawned during Governor Bush’s talks when he was in the Oval Office, and the Republicans did so for Governor Clinton during his term [3]. And the rudeness hardly stops there. Several GOP members held up competing health care bills during this most recent speech [4], while others perused their PDAs and tweeted away.

Nor is this the worst breach of etiquette in the hallowed halls of Congress. Take, for example, the beating of Senator Sumner by Representative Brooks, who took umbrage at some of the more colorful language used in an anti-slavery speech. And then there was the infamous Hamilton-Burr duel [5]. And other incidents abound, from the petty bickerings of Lincoln and Polk to the inanity of Senator Proxmire’s infamous Golden Fleece Awards [6].

However, what this outburst does show is that civil discourse is approaching a nadir, both as a country and as individuals.(At least that’s what I hope it shows; if the true perigee is much lower, we may burn up from the friction.) News has degenerated into a Winchellesque mix of name-calling and self-promotion, with insinuated slanders [7]. Considered opinion has been replaced by “talking points” [8]. Reality has been superseded by rhetoric [9]. And we, as individuals and as a country, are the poorer for it.

So please let me renew my call for civility in discourse. We can disagree (indeed, without disagreement, there is no progress). But we should use facts, not sophistry, to back up our claims. And we should be mature enough to agree that though some topics can be decided by facts (e.g., evolution, climate change), others cannot (e.g., morality).

John

[1] Interestingly, NBC, CBS, and ABC carried the speech live, while FOX went on with its regular programming. A deliberate slight? Or just “business as usual”? (Or perhaps both?) In any case, it adds an interesting nuance to the topic at hand.

[2] Though germane to the larger question of the bills at hand, it is largely irrelevant to this topic.

[3] It is likely that there are reports of Whigs being rude to General Washington when he was the Commander in Chief. I’m just to lazy to dig them out.

[4] Actually, I found that maneuver to be fairly clever. They were engaging in passive resistance and showing that they actually were trying to make progress on the matter (after twelve years of delaying tactics).

[5] Senso stricto, not actually held in the halls of Congress, but close enough for my point.

[6] The vast majority of which were based on a willful ignorance of the actual science being performed. (E.g., the use of toilet paper to examine fluid flow. Sounds silly, no? Until you read the research and discover that they were using this strips of tissue paper to map laminar flow around a submarine hull {this was in the days before sophisticated 3D modeling}. The final result of the research was a submarine hull that was faster and quieter – quite an important result from a national security perspective.) His conduct was outrageous enough hat a defamation case was brought against him and taken all the way to the US Supreme Court.

[7] Yes, yes; if they are only insinuated, they aren’t truly slander – at least in the USA.

[8] Witness the false controversy over Obama’s speech to school children. Very few of those (on either side) who had comments had actually read the thing in advance. And even fewer of them bothered to check to see if their guy had done the same thing!

[9] “Death panels”, anyone?

While traveling back and forth to visit various relatives last weekend, it struck me that the best analogy for the government’s involvement in health care is the highway system. You see, what we want is something like the interstate [1] – a system where we can get on and off as we choose and where the government pays for everything. What we hope to get is something like the toll roads – a system where we have to pay, but the government subsidizes the cost and maintains the infrastructure. And what we are afraid we will get is the driver’s license system – a faceless bureaucracy designed to prevent you from getting something that is yours by right [2].

It is that fear that is being exploited so well by commentators. They point to cases in other countries with global health insurance and treat them as the norm [3]. Or they take language intended to give the patients more information and twist it into mandatory action [4]. And it is a fear that is hard to combat. After all, who hasn’t been stuck in a line waiting on a government worker to find some reason to deny you the license you deserve [5]? Now can you imagine yourself standing in line in a hospital gown, waiting for a government worker to decide if you really qualify for that expensive open heart surgery [6]?

The truth is that we already have the first system, the “interstate highway” of medical care; it is called Medicare/Medicaid. This program is “free” [7] and (like the interstate system) allows you to make many choices, within certain limits. But (also like the interstate system) this system has been stressed to the bursting point by the addition of more traffic than it can bear. Thus, it would be extremely difficult to expand the system to all Americans without a radical change in the structure [8].

That’s why the current Congress and Administration are pushing the second system, a “toll road” where those that choose to can use it and those that don’t can continue to use the bumpy roads of private health care. The current bill provides a “public option” for people who choose to use it. The public option won’t be free but it will provide coverage to those that the insurance companies leave out (e.g., folks between jobs [9], folks with pre-existing or chronic conditions) and it will provide a viable alternative to privately-run plans. Because it is run by the government (or, more likely, by a company under contract to the government), this will be a low-cost provider. And, just as the airlines have learned to fear Southwest’s entrance into an airport because it means fares will drop, the private insurance companies know that the government plan will force them to become less expensive [10].

Now it could be argued (and some have), that what the government should do is stay out of the road building business entirely and just ensure that the roads that do get built by private companies meet safety standards; i.e., that the government’s role in health care should be watch dog and not provider. The best counter-argument to that is cable television. The FCC regulates cable TV with the assistance of various state and local bodies [11], but generally the cable companies are allowed to arrange their menus any way that they wish. And what they wish is for us all to have the same set of options (which costs them the least to provide) instead of allowing us to pick and choose which channels to subscribe to (which makes us happier). And what they wish is for us to see their commercials (which they make money off of) instead of allowing us to skip the ads (did you know that they are now adding commercials that will flash onscreen whenever you skip ahead just so that you won’t skip the sponsor’s message?)

So think about what would happen and what has happened thus far as the government has tried to regulate the insurance industry. The insurers have used their lawyers to find ways of keeping the government’s rules from being effective [12] and have found ways of dropping those covered by the rules [13]. If the insurers succeed in keeping this bill from passing, then we will return to business as usual [14]. If the bill passes, then everyone will have the ability to get health insurance for the first time in US history [15].

John

[1] Built by the government under Eisenhower, based on his experiences in World War II. He knew that the key to victory in a war was being able to move men and material as quickly as possible (witness Patton and the Ardennes); he also knew that America was not prepared for a nuclear war. Building an interstate system was his solution. Intended to link military bases [a], planners originally intended to include a fallout shelter under each overpass. It was only after interstate truckers discovered how easy this made to move goods [b] and politicians discovered how easy it was to steer construction projects and the associated pork, er, patronage, er, essential funding to their states [c] that it went from a military-focused project to a more universal one.

[2] I admit that driving is a privilege and not a right. However, most Americans are unaware of this, based on their behavior on the roads.

[3] In logic, this is known as the “Hasty Generalization” fallacy. (Not to be confused with the "Hasty Pudding" fallacy,w hich is assuming that anything amusing can come from Harvard.)

[4] E.g., the soi disant “death panels”, which never existed in the bill under consideration. What did exist was a version of the language introduced by a Republican senator in previous bills that mandated that the government would pay the attending physician to explain how living wills work to any patient that might have need of one (i.e., the terminally ill and elderly); the program was voluntary for both the physician and the patient – only the government’s pay was mandatory.

[5] Remember John’s First Law of Bureaucracy: “You are never punished for saying ‘No!’.”

[6] In truth, many HMOs do exactly this, but for some reason this is something that is OK as long as a private party does it but unacceptable if the government does it.

[7] I.e., paid for with your tax dollars.

[8] Either the level of care would have to go down (“rationing”), or the cost to the taxpayer would have to go up (higher taxes). Neither is a good solution from a practical point of view. And from a political point of view, either one is tantamount to suicide.

[9] Just ask someone who has switched jobs lately how well that COBRA thing worked for them!

[10] Which means either reducing benefits to the subscriber (bad), reducing corporation costs (worse), or reducing profit margins (worst). Is it any wonder they aren’t happy?

[11] Did you know that most municipalities decide on a single cable provider for you? This is a hold-over of the old “sometimes only a monopoly will do” theory that some jobs are just too big to allow any rivals to threaten the profits. Telephone service used to be like that (remember “Ma Bell”?), as did electrical service (and it still is in many areas). Fortunately, other companies are finding ways around this artificial price support (e.g., DishTV).

[12] This is again reminiscent of Southwest Airlines, which spent its entire first three years fighting with the major airlines just for the right to provide low-cost service
.
[13] If you live in Florida, or anywhere along the Gulf Coast, you have an even better appreciation of this. After every hurricane, the insurance companies decide to raise rates, reduce coverage, and find ways of dropping those who made a claim.

[14] 46 million uninsured, which means that wither the taxpayer ends up footing the bill when they get sick or they end up with crushing debt (or both).

[15] Think this isn’t true? Try to get a new insurance policy for a 20 year old female college student with a basal cell glioma, or for a 60 year old male with prostate cancer.

[a] Which is why Hawai’i has an interstate highway.

[b] Which happened about six minutes after they opened the first section of highway.

[c] Which happened about six seconds after the first bill was introduced in Congress.

It seems that the NASA official in charge of ISS operations has told Obama's Augustine Commission [1] that, as things currently stand, the ISS is due to be decommissioned and deorbited in 2016 - a mere five years after it is complete! [2] Why? Money, of course.

As always, NASA has no long term mission for the space station. As built, it is very maintenance intensive and very, very light on the science. Its main accomplishment has been to show that we can build something this large and complex in orbit (admittedly, no mean feat, but still far short of where we thought we'd be by now). Nevertheless, abandoning it now is like giving a two year old up for adoption; most of the hard work is done and the fun is just starting. With a larger budget and renewed commitment to funding a supply ship [3], the ISS could be expanded and made useful both for pure science [4] and as a base for creating the cislunar shuttle. All it needs is a bit of political courage and determination.

And that's where we come in. Write your congresscritter [5]. Tell them in no uncertain terms that this is unacceptable. The future depends on a presence in space - and that depends on you.

John

[1] This is the group that Obama tasked with deciding if (A) returning to the Moon (B) using Constellation is the right goal for us as a nation and a species.
[2] As for why it took so long to build the darn thing, see my previous post on the topic.
[3] The VentureStar, the Yankee Clipper, the Space Plane - pick one! Or go commercial with SpaceShipTwo, the Roton, the Lynx, or the Dream Chaser (to name just a few).
[4] Imagine a telescope that combines the best features of the Hubble and the new adaptive optics ground-based systems, with lenses so good that we can see planets around other solar systems. Imagine an engineering lab that makes materials that literally cannot be made on Earth. Imagine a prototype solar power satellite showing that we don't have to be dependent on OPEC. And remember that these could all be ours for less than the cost of one year of funding for the Iraq war.
[5] Don't know who your Representative or Senator is or how to reach them? Follow the links!

About the time that the United States was breaking away from England, a noted jurist in the mother country wrote that it was "better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer". Since then, the eponymous Blackstone’s ratio has become one of the cornerstones of American jurisprudence and is enshrined in such legal maxims as “innocent until proven guilty” and “beyond a shadow of a doubt” [1].

We now face the practical test of that maxim: releasing the prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp. Through a combination of incompetence, inaccuracy, and negligence, nearly 800 people have been brought to the facility [2]; of these, more than 400 have been released without charge, leaving us with about 250 men who may or may not be terrorists [3]. Currently, the Pentagon plans to release all but about 100 of the current population. Those kept will be tried as terrorists [4].

What to do with those who are tried and found not guilty and with those who are simply released is problematic at best. The Pentagon has said for years that many of those released will return to supporting Al Qaeda and other groups fighting against the US [5]. They now have some data to back up these assertions. Based on DNA, fingerprints and “other reliable data”, the Pentagon claims that 14% of the released detainees have joined groups fighting against the US.

And that brings us back to the point of this post. Should we release the people who were held at Guantanamo (excepting those against whom we have enough evidence to put to trial), knowing that one out of every eight will join the fight against us [6]? Or should we continue to hold all of the people for the crimes that they might commit? And what does either decision say about us as a nation and as individuals? [7]

John

[1] There are even some who would take the idea further through the supposed “right” of jury nullification whereby a jury can decide that someone is innocent because the law itself is bad. The problem with jury nullification is that for every case where it would allow Rosa Parks to sit in the front of the bus, there are ten cases where it would allow Byron De La Beckwith to get away with murder.

[2] Can’t call it a prison, as prisoners have established rights (e.g., habeas corpus). Under policies begun by the last administration and continued to a large extent by the current administration,  those being held in Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp have only the rights that they can force the US government to recognize – and a win in one case rarely means that the other captives will also have the same rights extended to them.

[3] Worried that the numbers don’t add up? So am I. There are times when the number of enemies captured in combat should be suppressed (i.e., when it will help us win the war). However, there has been no evidence that this is one of those times and much evidence that keeping this information secret is hurting our efforts overseas and helping to fuel use of Gitmo as a recruiting tool by the very forces we are trying to defeat. The secrecy has now put us into a can’t-win situation of having to prove that there are no more captives there once the camp is closed. Note that this isn’t the fault of the folks trying to close the camp; it is the fault of the ones who opened and operated it under such secrecy.

[4] Though any prosecution of them will be made much more difficult by the abusive techniques applied to the captives at Gitmo. Most of the evidence in at least two trials was so tainted that the judge threw out the cases. Whether or not the techniques can be considered torture depends on whether or not one holds to the US ideals of 1946 or of 2001.

[5] Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Assume that after the USSR had invaded the US the KGB had grabbed you in the night and  taken you to a “detention facility”  where they gave you the “water cure” every day for five years before releasing you back home. Want to give odds that you wouldn’t try to get a little of your own back?

[6] I am reminded of a “silver age” science fiction story in which you could volunteer to go to prison and serve your term in advance of the crime, with half of the sentence cut off as a “pre-payment” discount. Unlike Guantanamo, the story had a happy ending.

[7] Were I in charge, I would release all but those against whom we had air-tight evidence (i.e., not tainted by torture) and pay those who were held $1000/month of imprisonment (and advertise the heck out of the payment). I would also put those who gave the OK for “enhanced interrogation techniques” on trial (we did so several times in WWII, so there is no reason that we can’t do so now) and make public the list of those who knew about the torture but said nothing.

From a Reuter's [1] story about women's gyms in Saudi Arabia comes this gem:

"Football and basketball are sports that require a lot of movement and jumping," Sheikh Abdullah al-Maneea, member of the official Supreme Council of Religious Scholars, said in a religious opinion published in Okaz newspaper Thursday.

He said such excessive movement may harm girls who are still virgins, possibly causing them to lose their virginity.

Either he or I are grossly misinformed about virginity and how to lose it. I'll admit going to the gym helps, but mainly by making your shape more aesthetically pleasing.

John

[1] You gotta love the MSM; if it is stupid, they'll print it!

For tax day I won't belabor the problems with the flat tax (a.k.a. "fair tax"), as that has been done elsewhere. Instead, I'd like to share a little perspective with you.

If you earned the median income of $66,000 dollars this year, were married and filed a joint return with no special deductions (kids, business loss, alien abduction, etc.), then you paid $9,188 in taxes or about 14% of your income.

Stepping back four years to 2005, that $66,000 shrinks to $60,000 [1,2] and the tax bite remains 14% ($8,330).

Going ten years further back to 1995, your income is now just $47,142. Your taxes are $7,043 or 15% of your income.

A decade earlier, in 1985 your income is $22,759 and takes take 18% of it at $4,161.

During 1975, your income is $16,296, of which $4,003 is taken by the 25% tax bite.

The Great Society's bill is a smidge lower. In 1965, your income is $10,201 and Uncle Sam asks you for $2,380 or 23%. [3]

If you like Ike, then your income in 1955 is $8,386 and Dwight will ask you for $2,002 or 24% of it.

And at the end of WWII, your 1945 income is $5,588 of which $1,519 goes to fight against the Nipponese - that's a 27% bite!

So the actual tax rate has dropped roughly by a factor of 2 in 60 years. What was that again about taxes being high?

John [4]

[1] Using Moneychimp to do the adjustment for inflation.

[2] Assuming married, filing jointly, no kids. Also assuming that the tax brackets are distributed evenly between the highest and lowest rates for each year (as that is the only data that I can find right now).

[3] The tax rate goes up from 1965 to 1975 because adjustments to the brackets hadn't kept up with inflation.

[4] Footnotes re-added. They were there, I swear, but the great Vox gremlin must have eaten them.