Were the good old days better due to the rich paying higher taxes than currently?

1. The Kennedy-Johnson tax cut reduced the top rate from 91% in 1963 to 70% in 1965, and the share of personal income tax paid by the top one-half percent of earners rose from 16% to 18%. 2. The Reagan tax rates in the 1980s lowered the top rate from 70% to 50% and then to 30%, and the share of taxes paid by these earners rose from 14% to 22% of the total. 3. In 1997, the tax rate on income from capital gains was cut from 28% to 20%, and this rate reduction was accompanied by a substantial increase in revenues collected from capital gains taxes and personal income taxes collected from high-income taxpayers. In fact, capital gain taxes roughly doubled from $66 billion in 1996 (the last year before the tax cut) to $129 billion in 2000, when these earners paid 31% of all taxes collected. Source: "Economics: Private and Public Choice, by Gwartney, Stroup, Sobel and Macpherson, 11th Edition"

Public Comments

1. I love how no neo-con has answered this. It's because the good ol' days actually funded their programs.
2. Yes, in many respects, and less was spent for war except for Vietnam
3. Back in them days, We didn't have governmemt programs like medicaid and medicare. We didn't have SSI added to SS either. Those three programs alone, are 40% of the Federal Budget each year. None of those programs started untill 1967. \ Back in the good ole days, the job of the federal government, was basicly national defense. They expected the citizens, to pay for thier own health insurance, pay for thier own retirement. Rebuild thier own houses, if they lived in a flood zone or hurricane zone. The nanny state had not started yet. Even Social Security was diffferent. When SS sarted, the SS retirement age, was 7 years higher than the average life span of a US citizen. IE: the average life span , was 55 years ols, and the SS retirement age was 62 years old. If you had increased the SS retirement age, to keep up with longer life spans. Then today, the SS retirement age, would be 77 years old!!! SS wouldn't have a huge problem, if SS went back to the way it used to be.