Thank you Representatives... for not Representing Me!

And by way of contrast:"For everyone to whom much is given, of him shall much be required." -- Luke 12:48Wait, that doesn't contrast at all!Regardless of how fair it is for some people to be born on third base and be told they hit a triple, the diminishing marginal utility of a dollar demonstrates trivially that society stands much to gain and little to lose from at least a moderate program of transferring wealth from the wealthy to the poor. No system of marginal tax rates, which is what we have, could possibly result in "taxing wealthy people out of prosperity." It's impossible to do so in on a marginal tax basis.

We have marginal tax rates, Phat. There's no system of marginal tax rates where earning more money pre-taxes doesn't result in you having more money post-taxes, as well, unless you're talking about tax rates at 100% or higher. Even at a top tax rate of 99%, getting richer pre-tax still means you take home more money post-taxes.It's true that the top Federal tax margin is 35% or so. But it's a marginal rate - and the margin starts at $500,000. That means you only pay a rate of 35% on income in excess of $500,000.Because of the diminishing marginal utility of money, people don't benefit as much from earning a two-millionth dollar as they do from earning a thirty-thousandth dollar. Therefore it makes great practical sense to transfer some amount of wealth from the rich - who lose little from having that wealth confiscated - and giving it to the poor, who benefit greatly from it. It's not unfair in the least to have a progressive system of taxation with high rates for the top margins, and it doesn't in any way remove the incentives to make more money (if that's what you want to do.)