"When I was a kid, only rich people had more than one car, or a color TV. "

Or several computers, or Internet access, or hundred+ channel cable/satellite TV, or cell phones, or phones in every room, or hospitals with multi-million dollar medical technology budgets (and associated staffing costs), or armed forces with fleets of billion dollar stealth bombers, or personal GPS units, or DVD players, or CD collections, or blue jeans/runners that cost 50 hours minimun wage pay, or RVs, or etc, etc.

There are a LOT more things to spend money on now than there were 30 years ago, and what is perceived as "necessary" has increased - as you say, Tom, the bar has been raised.

Taxes are higher, certainly, and certainly a lot of that is wasted by government, but don't forget the costs of the US military machine (that, as you remind us, guards the safety of the US as well as the rest of the western world) are paid for by those taxes. Anybody have figures for US military budgets in 1973 as compared to 2003 (excluding war costs)?