Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?

[Dayuhan]

the baby boom is figured from the end of WWII to about 20 years later, give or take. That would mean a lot of baby boomers were in the start of their productive years in the 70s.

There was a significant acceleration in 1952, and the peak was 1957.

In 1996 the 76 million Americans that make up the baby boom generation were between 32 and 50. In 1986 they were between 22 and 40. In 1976 they were between 12 and 30. How much income tax do you figure they paid, collectively, in those 3 years? Big difference, I'd guess.

Put it another way... in 1980 the 1955-1960 cohort that forms the core of the baby boom was 20-25 years old. From then on, their collective income and collective tax payments would have increased just a bit, don't you think? Then there's all those tax deductions their parents stopped taking when the kids graduated from college. Not saying demographics were the only factor, but I'd guess they have at least as much impact on the increase in federal tax revenue from 1980-2000 as tax policy, maybe more.

Still trying to figure out how this got from torture to tax policy...