Quote Originally Posted by jabarto View Post
Fair enough. But my point was that 50 years ago, the rich had a maximum tax of 90%, and now it's at - what, 35%? No matter how you look at it, taxes on the rihc are nowhere near what they once were, so saying that we're incentivized to tax the rich is ridiculous. It's actually one of the most incediary topics in our country.
Look at the peaks in the graph on the wiki page. The first peak is 1917-21, what world event might have caused the US government to raise taxes in such an extreme manner?

The second peak starts at 1932, tops out at 1944, and starts the drop at 1963. This peak is pretty interesting, especially if you look at the lowest tax bracket percent. This goes from 4% in 1932, jumps to 10% in 1941, peaks at 23% in 1944, drops a bit, then goes back up to 20+% through to 1963. This tells me that the rich got hit with high taxes during the Depression, then everyone gets hit for WWII, and then it slowly drops off for both rich and poor as war debt is slowly paid off.

Some may argue (myself included) that raised taxes should have been included as part of our ill-advised Mesopotamian adventure. There is precedent for it, and it invests the population into the outcome. But keeping at such high rates for any tax bracket just because is not a good thing.