On the Historians' Lies About Andrew Mellon (and I'm Talking About Mainstream Historians; People Like Schlesinger, Stampp, Garraty, Woodward, Bailey, Kennedy, McFeely, etc.)

a) That Mellon wanted to reduce the tax burden on the affluent - Just the opposite is true in that according to the tax-records of the time (and synopsized by researchers such as Gwartney, Rader, Silver, etc.), the amount of taxes paid by families earning over $100,000 a year increased by 86% (from $194 million to $362 million) from 1921 to 1926.......b) That Mellon wanted to increase the tax burden on the poor - Again, the opposite is true in that according to those same records, the amount of taxes paid by families earning less than $10,000 a year was reduced by 79% (from $155 million to $33 million) during that same time period (he also reduced excise taxes, another tax that hammers the needy).......c) That Mellon wanted to completely do away with the estate tax - The truth is that he simply wished to reduce it and have the revenue go to the states.......d) That Mellon used the Board of Tax Appeals as a way to enrich himself - The truth is that Mellon had nothing to do with granting refunds AND (as Burton Folsom points out in "The Myth of the Robber Barons") this agency actually netted the Treasury MORE MONEY (nearly $2 billion more).....Those are just four..............................................................................................P.S. And, yes, Mellon eventually did lower the top rates from 73% to 24%. But he did this not because he was some rich Snidely Whiplash but because he was smart enough to know that rich people alter their behavior in response to high tax rates (seeking out shelters like tax-exempt bonds and trusts, investing less in taxable ventures, and just plain working less) and that the government would probably extract more out of them if they reduced the penalty on work, savings, and investment. And he was right.