I don't think people realize how these tax rates mobilized the rich to create the system we have today. The "no increase taxes" pledge that many Republicans take. Read this and it becomes clearer:
Thirty or forty years of the Reagan/Thatcher small government, bonfire of regulation and taxes and we're not yet anywhere near the halcyon days of a new golden age. Their prescription? Bleed the patient an eighth time, it's the only remedy still in the book.
Lower taxes made some sense after the pain of the seventies oil shocks, and the myriad problems they caused, but now it's not even slightly credible. The amazing thing is how many are still taken in.
This isn’t inevitable, despite the framing they spend many dollars to convince you of such.