I made a little table showing the highest marginal tax rate from 1913 to 2022 coded in blue for Democrat presidents and red for Republican:

source1

source2

• The first Democrat run saw a stunning rise of 66% in the highest marginal tax rate due to the insane expense of WWI.

• The first Republican run saw a drop of 48% as the nation moved away from the war economy and into the post-war economy.

• The second Democrat run saw a sharp rise of 38% at the beginning and a further rise of 28% by the end of their run because of the Great Depression and WWII in that order.

• The second Republican run kept the ultra-high (91%!) highest marginal tax rate during the post-war boom with no change.

• The third Democrat run saw the rate fall by 21% over its span.

• The third Republican run kept the rate as-is over its span.

• The fourth Democrat run (single-term) kept the rate as-is over its span.

• The fourth Republican run dropped the rate by 39%

• The fifth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 9% over its span.

• The fifth Republican run saw a drop of almost 5% over its span.

• The sixth Democrat run saw an increase of almost 5% over its span.

• The sixth Republican run saw a drop of almost 3% over its span.

• The final Democrat run (and the last data I have) saw no change.

If we factor out the war years (up to the end of the second Democrat run) we don’t see a huge pattern of differences in tax rates, given that those are the highest marginal tax rates and people in that bracket tend to have many ways to evade taxes. (Apartheid Manchild recently complain/bragged that he paid an amount of taxes that turned out to be 3-4% of his income where the vast majority of people pay well over 11% of their incomes, for example.)

So I doubt it’s money. It’s something else.

Other interesting notes that pop out at me:

• the Great Depression happened in 1929 under Republicans (~3.5 years)
• the recession of 1937 was under Democrats (~1 year)
• the recession of 1949 was under Democrats (~1 year)
• the recession of 1953 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
• the recession of 1958 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
• the recession of 1960 was under Democrats (~¾ years)
• the recession of 1969 was under Republicans (~1 year)
• the recession of 1973 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
• the recession of 1980 was under Republicans (~½ years)
• the recession of 1981 was under Republicans (~1¼ years)
• the recession of 1990 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
• the recession of 2001 was under Republicans (~¾ years)
• the Great Recession happened in 2007 under Republicans (extending into Democrats) (~1.5 years)

Here I see a distinct pattern that should alarm anybody running a business since lost sales account far more for lost wealth than alterations in the highest marginal tax rate.