When Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that in 1927, what were the tax rates? No payroll taxes, for starters. Federal income tax? I took a look at the tables in this document.

Adjusting the income numbers for inflation between 1927 and 2009 (a multiple of about 12.25), the personal exemption for single payers was $18,000, and $43,000 for married couples. Dependent deduction was $4,900.

The standard deduction now on my 1040 is $5,700 for single, and $11,400 for married. Dependent deduction is $3,650.

The lowest tax rate was 1.125 percent on taxable income up to $49,000. Given the exemptions, this rate for a married couple (no dependents) would hold until you were making $92,000 a year. So if your family made $92,000 a year, in 1927 you'd pay $1,035 in Federal income tax, and no payroll taxes. How's that compare to your tax bite this year?

The highest rate was 25 percent for income over $1.23 million. I don't know what the middle rates were.

Again, all numbers adjusted up to 2009 dollar values, and assuming I didn't screw up any math.

Anyway, you can see that taxes weren't all that big a deal back when Holmes said this.