[netmau5]

This addresses a larger issue, but the specifics discussed hit home with me. I started my company several months ago and lost my health insurance. After paying into the system for the last 8 years, I feel like I've just been giving my money away. I had always been under the impression that I could never be denied for insurance if I had an existing policy but obviously that was misguided.

I'm overweight, I'm a smoker, and I have high blood pressure. Starting a company could literally kill me (on top of aforementioned dumb decisions). The rich used to pay 90% taxes and we still had Vanderbilt, Carnegie, and Morgan.

[jandrewrogers]

As a technical nitpick, Vanderbilt, Carnegie, et al were from an era when there was very little taxation at all. Taxation in the United States as we experience it today is a 20th century invention.

Also, while there was a 90% marginal tax rate at one point, the structure of taxes was quite different such that the effective tax rate of the rich was closer to 20%.

[arbuge]

No... Those folks had no income tax. Income tax came later.

The 90% bracket was extremely high when it existed and snared very few people.

[zecho]

Could you elaborate? The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913 and from what I can tell the top marginal rate was in the 90s until 1964...

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Doc...

[arbuge]

The 3 billionaires mentioned were pre-1913. Morgan might have had a little bit of overlap.

The 90% tax rate was indeed in effect but very few people fell victim to it: http://almostclassical.blogspot.com/2011/03/90-tax-rate-myth...

[chubbard]

Remember they all made their fortunes pre-1913 so those monies weren't subject to taxes when they earned them. They lived well past 1913, but by then they were giving most of it away. Post 1913 they paid income tax on the money they earned it was just being giving away.