[Philip55]

That is correct. Had the tax rates been higher, that "business expansion or something" would not have occured.

I'm not going to argue it, but I will explain the theory.

Here's a hypothetical. A government taxes income above $200,000 at a rate of 95%. If that tax bracket is lowered to 30%, will the government end up with more or less?

Clearly, the answer is more. Productivity will skyrocket.

Historical data:

In 1913, the federal progressive income tax was put into place with a top marginal rate of 7 percent. Thanks in part to World War I, this tax rate was quickly increased significantly and peaked at 77 percent in 1918. Then, through a series of tax-rate reductions, the Harding-Coolidge tax cuts dropped the top personal marginal income tax rate to 25 percent in 1925. The economy responded strongly to the tax cuts, with output nearly doubling and unemployment falling sharply.

During the Depression and World War II, the top marginal income tax rate rose steadily, peaking at an incredible 94 percent in 1944 and 1945. The rate remained above 90 percent well into President John F. Kennedy's term. Kennedy's fiscal policy stance made it clear that he believed in pro-growth, supply-side tax measures:

"Tax reduction thus sets off a process that can bring gains for everyone, gains won by marshalling resources that would otherwise stand idle--workers without jobs and farm and factory capacity without markets. Yet many taxpayers seemed prepared to deny the nation the fruits of tax reduction because they question the financial soundness of reducing taxes when the federal budget is already in deficit. Let me make clear why, in today's economy, fiscal prudence and responsibility call for tax reduction even if it temporarily enlarged the federal deficit--why reducing taxes is the best way open to us to increase revenues."

President Kennedy proposed massive tax-rate reductions, which were passed by Congress and became law after he was assassinated. The 1964 tax cut reduced the top marginal personal income tax rate from 91 percent to 70 percent by 1965. The cut reduced lower-bracket rates as well. In the four years prior to the 1965 tax-rate cuts, federal government income tax revenue--adjusted for inflation--increased at an average annual rate of 2.1 percent, while total government income tax revenue (federal plus state and local) increased by 2.6 percent per year. In the four years following the tax cut, federal government income tax revenue increased by 8.6 percent annually and total government income tax revenue increased by 9.0 percent annually. Government income tax revenue not only increased in the years following the tax cut, it increased at a much faster rate.

In August 1981, President Reagan signed into law the Economic Recovery Tax Act (ERTA, also known as the Kemp-Roth Tax Cut). The ERTA slashed marginal earned income tax rates by 25 percent across the board over a three-year period. The highest marginal tax rate on unearned income dropped to 50 percent from 70 percent (as a result of the Broadhead Amendment), and the tax rate on capital gains also fell immediately from 28 percent to 20 percent. Five percentage points of the 25 percent cut went into effect on October 1, 1981. An additional 10 percentage points of the cut then went into effect on July 1, 1982. The final 10 percentage points of the cut began on July 1, 1983.

These across-the-board marginal tax-rate cuts resulted in higher incentives to work, produce, and invest, and the economy responded. Between 1978 and 1982, the economy grew at a 0.9 percent annual rate in real terms, but from 1983 to 1986 this annual growth rate increased to 4.8 percent.