"A Democratic policy of businesslike retrenchment will go far to roll back the tidal wave that has overwhelmed the party."

The title is from the end of an op-ed in the New York Times. I'm absolutely serious.

The New York Times in 1894, that is.

A century before the failed "luxury tax" of 1990 and today's MTA shortfalls, the income tax was presented as guaranteed revenue by those whose lives were based on redistribution (giving or receiving), and you didn't have to be a proponent of the state to be skeptical of how much a tax could really produce.