"The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich"

Apropos of some dumbass Limbaugh rant, Jon Chait turns to an early supporter of progressive taxation:

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

-- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, book 5, ch. 2.

I really do need to read The Wealth of Nations one of these days.

... And in comments to the Chait post, we're cited to this:

Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation beneath a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.

-- Jefferson to Madison, 1785.