But Americans didn't always view taxes with the dread and indignation they do today. In fact, during World War II, as the government was hiking taxes on most workers to help pay for the war, Irving Berlin wrote an upbeat patriotic ditty called "I Paid My Income Tax Today," which Danny Kaye sang and hundreds of radio stations played. And until the 1980s, many Americans paid income taxes at far higher rates than we have today, with little of the antipathy that taxpayers feel toward Washington now.
The paradox today is that the tax burden on most Americans is at the lowest level since at least 1979, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That's one reason Democrats are pushing for tax hikes on the wealthy, to help narrow the huge annual deficits that have pushed the national debt above $16 trillion. Yet even as tax hikes on the wealthy are starting to seem inevitable, a huge fight is brewing over keeping them modest and exacting sharp cuts in government spending in exchange. The fight that's starting now over fairly modest tax hikes reveals a country that has changed dramatically over the last 30 or 40 years.
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