Taxation in the US has been biased toward the benefit of the rich since the 1980s, when the tax system set up to pay for WW2 and the Korean War was upended. Administrations since then, be they Democratic-dominated or Republican, have kept within the relatively low-tax framework especially with regard to the rich. The only one to stray (only slightly) outside the fold was Clinton, and note that his Administration was the last time that the US federal budget was even arguably balanced.

The poor have always paid a small portion of the total tax take, since they don't have much money and the tax tables have (rightly) been designed over the years to allow them to keep a relatively large portion of their small incomes. Which leaves, to pay for government and all of its programs, the middle class, which is shrinking rapidly in recent decades.

Whether this has anything to do with railfanning and railroad retirement is questionable.