The marginal tax rate was

91% under Ike starting at $400,000

70% from  Nixon to Carter, at $200,000

28% under Reagan at  $300,000.

40% under Clinton at $288,000. Which became 35%, under the famous Bush  tax cuts.

(remind me why we can't afford social security!)

If you were an AIG trader collecting $6 million in 2004 after taking a risk which might -and did- bankrupt your employer you'd have kept $3,900,000 to comfort you if your social security was inadequate. 

Back under Ike you'd have kept less than $600,000. Theoretically that might have made you a bit careful. Only theoretically because no compensation committee would  have authorized that bonus in the first place, knowing that 91% would be paid to the IRS. Directors are fond of avowing their patriotism but that doesn't extend to taking money from the bank account and mailing it to Washington.

When Obama and his brain trust were wrestling with the moral hazard of bailing out essentially every car company and bank, the fear was they'd then go back to the same old profligate ways. So some company should be punished pour encourager les autres (that's French for encourager les autres).

But maybe wiping out the shareholders and firing the workers seemed sort of an indirect way of offsetting compensation so excessive it makes it worth taking a bet-your-company risk because if you collect (thank you Tim Geithner) you're outta there.

We're met the enemy and it is the low progressivity of our tax rates.