The “taxed themselves like crazy, while building massive private and public infrastructure, and had decades of middle class income growth” was mostly a combination of the Lost and Silent Generations; the “Greatest” started dismantling that when they became politically dominant and had completely wrecked it by the time the Boomers eclipsed them.
The silent generation came after the greatest generation, so I fail to see how they could dismantle it before the generation who enacted it was in power
