marginal tax rates and getting money from the wealthy

With Obama now officially proposing higher marginal tax rates on "the wealthy", it's worth a (long) look on the impact of such policies on taxes paid, productivity, and economic growth.

As for the percentage of personal income taxes paid by the top .5% of income earners, the economics text by Gwartney et. al. reports that:

-When Reagan and his Congress cut the top marginal tax rate (MTR) from 70% to 50% in 1981 (among other changes), the proportion rose from less than 14% to more than 21% by 1986.

-With the second tax cut, Reagan worked to institute indexing-- which along with deregulation in the late 1970 and early 1980s are probably the two most unsung but glorious moments of recent political economy-- and lowered the top MTR to 28%. With this, the proportion fell to about 19%.
-With the Bush I and Clinton tax increases, the top MTR rose proportion rose to 39.6% and the proportion paid by the most wealthy continued to rise, to 28%.

-With the modest MTR cuts by Bush (to 35%), the proportion has fallen slightly (although weird economic times since 2001 seem to have injected a lot of noise).

Of course, none of this includes payroll taxes-- which impose a far larger burden on the working poor and middle class. But no one-- not the "mean" Republicans or the "compassionate" Democrats (LOL!)-- cares about those.