Your stories just get more and more colorful. Literally.

But the cold, hard facts are less colorful.

You say you don't remember the '50's and '60's; neither do I. I wasn't born yet. But I have the data.

The tax structure from 1954-1963 is particularly instructive; details are here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Revenue_Code_of_1954

Note that the marginal tax rate was 38% on incomes from $10-12k. My CPI inflation calculator says that $10k in 1959 would be about $70k today. 38% @ $70k! And yet GDP expanded at an average of 3+% over this time. Unemployment averaged 5.4%.

My calculator says that $250k in 2007 was about $35k in 1959, which would land one in the 65% marginal tax bracket. And yet $250k'ers are freaked out about a return to 39% or so? Hah!

And yet your stained glass friends, if it's a third generation business, must have lasted through this dire period!

I would've been in the 59% marginal bracket myself in 1959...

Low marginal income tax rates in the US correlate with economic disruption, full stop. Correlation doesn't prove causation, but correlation + mechanism sure does. And the mechanism? Concentration of wealth among plutocrats, who, history tells us, are even greater destroyers of wealth (not their own) than the federal government. Amazing, but apparently true.

Why did the stained glass business dry up to the point that it now must rely on local benefactors? Are churches not buying as much stained glass because the middle-class churchgoers can't afford to donate as much because the middle class is dying?

Keep telling your noble little micro-economics stories. It's classic right-wing fiction, which George Lakoff nailed so recently:

Conservatives tend to think in terms of direct causation. The overwhelming moral value of individual, not social, responsibility requires that causation be local and direct. For each individual to be entirely responsible for the consequences of his or her actions, those actions must be the direct causes of those consequences. If systemic causation is real, then the most fundamental of conservative moral—and economic—values is fallacious.

But here's the rub: Systemic causation is real.

Dude, you seriously don't understand me.

I bought a house in December with a 60% down payment.

I drive a '98 car with 130k miles on it.

I don't have a Blu-Ray. We have one TV, but don't have cable.

So no, I'm not like the guy you describe.

Now, back to the main event.

Buffett: Buffett is not a destroyer of wealth. But he's something of an outlier. He recognized that "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction." So who are the destroyers of wealth, and how? See the previous sentence for an executive summary. It does not take a lot of imagination these days to understand how plutocrats can destroy wealth. Pick up a paper.

Morality: You make the classic conservative argument that poor people (the BluRay guy) are poor because they are not disciplined. Lakoff could use you as a poster child.

Jealousy: Progressive taxation is not about jealousy. It's about the empirical recognition that extreme concentration of wealth is not in society's best interest. See: Roosevelt, Theodore:

Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures.

But there is another harm; and it is evident that we should try to do away with that. The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State, and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is duty bound to control them wherever the need of such control is shown.

and

Our aim is not to do away with corporations; on the contrary, these big aggregations are an inevitable development of modern industrialism, and the effort to destroy them would be futile unless accomplished in ways that would work the utmost mischief to the entire body politic. We can do nothing of good in the way of regulating and supervising these corporations until we fix clearly in our minds that we are not attacking the corporations, but endeavoring to do away with any evil in them. We are not hostile to them; we are merely determined that they shall be so handled as to subserve the public good. We draw the line against misconduct, not against wealth.

I could go on; Teddy's the master on this subject.

CPI: I concede the point- CPI is probably not the most relevant way to adjust income ranges. But the point that the tax structure was much more progressive during almost the entire 20th century still stands, even for only the moderately well-off.

Tax history: Yeah, FICA was a few points lower. But we're talking about marginal tax rates 30-40 points higher than today. An interesting observation, but it doesn't change the argument.

Economic history: Yes, the economic and social climate was different in the 50's and 60's. Thanks for the newsflash. But my point is that the economy can flourish under a much, much more progressive tax structure than we have now, and that changes which reduced the tax burden on the rich did not, empirically, lead to a better society.

And you conclude with the "tax is theft" argument. Lovely. You are free to move to Somalia or some other local with much more favorable tax regimes. Like it or not, the 16th amendment authorizes income taxes. If you don't like it, you are free to conduct your life elsewhere, outside the reach of the U.S. Constitution. But me, I try to abide by the U.S. Constitution; I think, on balance, it's pretty good.