Call me crazy but I don't exactly have a ton of sympathy for temporarily embarrassed millionaires. The statement that we somehow have absurd tax rates now is completely inconsistent with the reality that taxes have been trending down for decades, punctuated by tax cuts that were made in the last decade. If you're worried about government spending and government debt, and you probably should take a macroeconomics class and realize you shouldn't be, then you ought to be in favor of reforming our codes to ensure the rich are paying a fair rate given that they benefit hugely from being in a country with developed infrastructure, a highly educated workforce, and a military that ensures global stability and unmolested shipping.

Bringing up tax codes from before 1900 is just an absurd way to start a discussion about this because we've had over a century of development in monetary policy and taxation since then.

So it took 130 years to go from 10% to 70% - given this is starting around .1% we will have like 400 years before it is ubiquitous? I am willing to take that risk.

Weirdly enough I actually had to write a college paper on the tax policy of the late Byzantine Empire. During the tenth and eleventh centuries, Roman land became increasingly consolidated under a few influential families, who used their influence to pay less taxes. This weakened the state and left it vulnerable to the fourth crusade and eventually the fall to the Turks.

Back to here, I don't think tax policy from the 1800s is especially relevant because the United States has gone through extensive reform with respect to monetary and economic policy since that time. The fed didn't exist and we were still on the gold standard. It's weird to use an obscure law nobody has every heard of to argue against taxing a class of wealthy Americans that are paying historically low tax rates.