Those were paper numbers, the 90% was on a very, very small percentage of the taxpayers. The 37% applies to a moderate percentage of taxpayers.
The big issue: about half of US taxpayers actually pay zero, or net negative income tax.
Further, the post WWII debt comparison is specious. The preponderance of Government spending was defense. Easy enough to turn off that spigot and balance the budget.
Today, over half the budget is entitlement, a large percentage is debt service, leaving very little room to cut spending (in any realistic scenario). Defense now, for example, before we spent trillions on stimulus, is about 16% of the budget. The entire DOD is about 700 billion. 1/3 the size of the current stimulus package.
Doesn’t leave much room to cut to balance the budget. Can’t cut entitlement, can’t cut debt service.