No it didn't - there were multitudes of loopholes. Nobody paid that much. The real way to measure the size of the state is % of GDP. This includes shadow taxes

No it didn't - there were multitudes of loopholes. Nobody paid that much. The real way to measure the size of the state is % of GDP. This includes shadow taxes such as printing-induced inflation and deficit spending. And guess what? The size of the state skyrocketed from a historic baseline of 1-2% to 35% in recent decades. Every now and then there's a war or a crisis and spending pops up like crazy, but it always used to go back down. Not anymore. The only time it's been higher than this year is in WW2 and during Covid. https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/exp@FPP/USA