[jbooth]

I'm in the band of income that pays the absolute highest taxes as a % of income. I just want rich people to pay the same % as I do, or a tiny bit higher since they'll miss it less. I don't complain about paying my taxes, I see them as membership fees to live in a society with laws and running water and OSHA.

It's not about "small govt" or "big govt", those are just buzzwords. The government's hugely in the red either way. Who convinced you that this was ideological, rather than a matter of simply paying their fair share?

[gyardley]

While we might be able to justify one person paying orders of magnitude more taxes than another, based on the overall benefit to society as a whole, let's not pervert language by describing that system as 'fair'. In fair systems, people get the same service for the same price.

[jbooth]

Yeah, and in an anarchic system, power and money flow upwards until it's unsustainable and it collapses.

We're not living in caves, definitions of fair should include upward mobility.

And who says they're not getting the same service? Wealthy corporations and individuals get a ton of services from the US gov't, from subsidies to infrastructure to direct benefit from the State Dept and military.

[ryanwaggoner]

We're not living in caves, definitions of fair should include upward mobility.

Are we talking absolute upward mobility, or relative upward mobility? If absolute, then we already have that. If relative, that's impossible...not everyone can be simultaneously relatively upwardly mobile :)