Yet, if you confiscated (taxed) the entire wealth of the top 400 ($3.2 trillion) that would not even cover an entire year of the U.S. federal budget ($5.5 trillion).
That's a comment that I hate. They could still be taxed an appropriate amount. Why should the majority of the tax burden be on the middle class? We pay a larger percentage of our income in taxes than they ever did.
// Why should the majority of the tax burden be on the middle class?
I think it's a common misconception that the rich don't pay taxes. According to a quick Google (but in line with prior research):
In 2020, the bottom half of taxpayers paid 2.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. The top 1 percent paid 42.3 percent of all federal income taxes.
First, that quote you found is cherry picked from 2020 which is not representative of most years. [1] The argument is also sneakily abusing the fact that federal taxes are intentionally applied only to income above the poverty level.
Second, it’s well documented that our billionaires pay around 8% (only on their “reported income”, btw, which is often tiny compared to the wealth they have access to. Google says Bezos pays more like 1% on the money he makes when you account for all of it.) 8% is obviously far far lower than our middle and upper middle classes pay. The millionaires might pay taxes in proportions similar to the middle class, but the super rich do not. The sources on this are plentiful and easy to find.
This makes me wonder about the free rider problem. If a hostile force invades the country, what do you do with the people that are delinquent on their "Military Defense" subscription?
The standard leftist slogan of "billionaires should not exist" implies that somehow eliminating anyone's ability to accumulate wealth is good for society. The reality is that destroying a few thousand people is cathartic to those who have envy and hatred in their blood, but will not solve any problems of society. I would also argue it will dramatically harm society, as many billionaires accumulated that wealth through building new companies in the private market (and therefore earned their wealth by satisfying more needs of consumers more efficiently), and are therefore far more competent stewards of wealth than our spendthrift and indebted governments.