The Futility of Tax Hikes in Pictures
Conn Carroll /
In light of the impending Obama Tax Hikes, Mercatus Center senior research fellow Veronique de Rugy created the chart to the right illustrating Hauser’s Law which Standford University professor Kurt Hauser recapped in this weekend’s Wall Street Journal:
Over the past six decades, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have averaged just under 19% regardless of the top marginal personal income tax rate. The top marginal rate has been as high as 92% (1952-53) and as low as 28% (1988-90). This observation was first reported in an op-ed I wrote for this newspaper in March 1993. A wit later dubbed this “Hauser’s Law.”