That's the problem about taxation. It needs gutted and restarted but reality tells me that isn't going to happen. I pay nearly the top tax rate on the marginal dollar but I stopped fretting about the unfairness of it.
What I fret about is the use and waste of the money once it leaves my hands. I get to cast votes once a year only to have the special interest groups, lobbyists, bleeding hearts, et al, et al, et al, unduly influence how that money is used. I'm resigned to government calling tax "revenue" and seeing a degraded economy as producing a "loss of revenue". Until it all comes tumbling down, and I've yet to see a modern nation with greater tax rates than ours suffer anything close to that yet, it will continue to be as it is with only minor shifts to the left or right.
As to your "Laffer Curve", unless you are in the 100+% tax bracket, earning a dollar means more money in your pocket. Earning two dollars doubles your take. Money people never turn away money because it is taxed. They never have and they never will.
It's not my Laffer Curve, it's Dr. Arthur Laffer's (Economic advisor to President Reagon).
In case you aren't familiar with the Laffer cure here is an hypothetical example of how it works. Lets lay a family of 4 with a taxable income of $40 thousand pays zero taxes while at the same time a family of 4 with $100 thousand in taxable income pays 60% in taxes. Both families of four net $40,000. Show me the incentive for the latter family to "earn" that extra $60,000 of "taxable income."
This presumes however more education and effort is nececssary to earn that extra $60K - many in our society think that the extra $60K comes from luck or dishonesty.