A) You should because it's indicative of the human behavior of successful people throwing road blocks in the path of anyone trying to do the same.
B) Irrelevant to my point. He's already made his pile so he doesn't care if it costs him more. People trying to break into the business without the benefit of a large fortune to draw from are now less able to do so. Some won't even bother which works to his advantage because somebody will drill for it.
C) You're assuming that the higher tax rate prior to 1995 was the sole inhibitor to success. Government regulations in the 60s and 70s were few and far between by comparison and the EPA hadn't really gotten going in the 80s so the guy had a much easier time of it early on.
A guy like this can afford an army of lobbyists to encourage regulation and taxation be written to either favor him or to hinder others.
And what are they going to do with the tax money anyway? Do you really think it's going to go to better schools? That's what they said about tobacco money. Didn't work out too well. And then there's the unintended consequence of feeding more government with the drug of more tax money which will become very difficult to eliminate down the road. "*GASP* WE CAN'T LOWER THOSE TAXES BECAUSE OUR KIDS WON'T BE ABLE TO GO TO SCHOOL!! OMFG!!!!! HOW CAN YOU THINK THAT YOU CHEAP BASTARD!!! Oh, btw, vote for me because I'll make sure the money keeps flowing."