and I do not believe there were significantly more deductions in the past. I am pretty sure there are still significant deductions that are still with us, as the current stats I looked at showed.

In 1993, the standard deduction was $3,700. The inflation calculator tells me that is $5,964 in 2013 dollars. Not all that much different from the $6,100 the standard deduction was in 2013. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=171

It was $2,300 in 1984 which is $5,156 in 2013 dollars, but the 1984 number was rather low. It was $2,300 in 1979 which is $7,380 in 2013 dollars. Making $6,100 actually 17% lower than it was in what I call the "good old days" (before Reagan ruined the country). The real value was closer to $7,000 in most of the 1970s (although it went up and down - in 1977 it was boosted to $8,457 in 2013 dollars!!!!)

Here's the inflation calculator.
http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=2200&year1=1977&year2=2013