Most Americans opt to have their employer take the taxes out and send them to the government for them. But its not required, we can choose to receive all of our pay and take responsibility for sending the government their cut ourselves. Its a PITA, but some opt to put their taxes in an account to earn interest for a year before paying the government. They view paying monthly as “giving the government a free loan.”

When you have your employer do it for you, your pay stub breaks down the amount you started with and how much was taken out for each tax. We can see what we are paying in tax on every paycheck which is why so many Americans complain about it.

You can see right where the energy crisis hit in 73. Then a bit of rebound under Carter, then a drop and flat line when Reaganomics kicked in.

The “damn it I forgot, let me google it” option, back then, was looking it up in the set of encyclopedias your family probably had. Or if you didn’t have a set, or needed more elaborate information, you went to the library.

I remember it was a big deal as a kid when we got the encyclopedia Britannica on CD-Rom. So I could just type in what I was looking for instead of having to try to find it manually.