It should surprise no one that tea bagger senator, Ron Johnson, is a fan of Ayn Rand. He recently gave an interview with the Rand-inspired, Atlas Society, where he made, as you would expect from someone like Johnson, a lot of stupid comments. However, one particular thing he said hasn’t achieved as much attention as it probably should have (skip to 6:37):

For those of you who can’t watch clips at work:

“It’s a real concern,” Johnson said, when asked if he saw examples of the private sector “shrugging”—that is, wilting under the pressure of government regulations. “As I talk to business owners that maybe started their businesses in the ’70s and ’80s, they tell me, with today’s level of taxation and regulation, there’s no way I can start my business today.”

Sigh.

See, this is why it’s difficult to have a grown up conversation with these folk. This is yet another example of a far right douchebag trying to argue his case by once again rewriting history.

So taxes in the 70s and 80s were much more business friendly than under Chairman ObaMAO’s regime? Let’s take a look, shall we? Here’s a list of the historical corporate tax rates from the non partisan Tax Policy Center. A quick glance shows that the top rates ranged from 49.2% in 1970 to 40% through 1987, with the last few years of that decade going at 34%. How does that compare to the anti freedom environment we have today? Currently, the rate is a whopping 35%!

Well, that appears to somewhat undermine Johnson’s complaint. But Let’s continue. What about the capital gains tax rate? The rate seemed to range from 20% on the low end, to as high as nearly 40% in those two decades. Up until the the beginning of this year, the rate under the entire first term for Obama was a crushing….15%?

Hmm.

So how do you suppose Johnson squares this circle? I would imagine that he rationalizes in by one of two ways. One theory is that Johnson may belong to that group of people who subscribe to the belief that numbers worked differently back in the old days before the stupid liberals recruited the homosexuals to write our arithmetic textbooks.

Alternatively, as Johnson has demonstrated quite recently, it could be that he simply just doesn’t care about getting his facts in order.