Why do you or the government deserve the profit from someone elses labor?? What gives you the right to take what is not yours??
What would motivate someone to make money if they could not keep it?
EXCELLENT QUESTIONS!
We need to stop thinking of government as 'them'. It's pernicious propaganda to suggest that a democracy should think of its own government as an outside entity. Why do you suppose that lie is so well promulgated? Who benefits?
What if We the People ran our own government, with an eye towards the common man as opposed to choosing the rich at the expense of everyone else? If it were accountable and transparent to everyone all the time (obvious exceptions for military necessity) then the idea that a portion of your income going to support the country would be a much sweeter bite to swallow.
This is absolutely not the situation as it exists on the ground today; the United States is every bit as much of an oligopoly as Putin's Russia- and we have the Princeton study that proves it. The current government is run as the personal pachinko game of the ultra rich- only they never lose, because the average taxpayer foots the bill.
So- if you knew that half your paycheck went to keeping the roads in great condition, building and running top notch schools for EVERY child, spending defense dollars to build alliances and assist people overseas instead of stones and cruise missiles... I don't want to digress.
The point is that citizen oriented civil service systems work much better than ours in most other industrialized nations- and we have every right to demand that level of service in this country. The idea that we aren't worth the investment is insulting.
How expensive is a permanent underclass, and how long can America continue to afford one in the twenty first century? I'd say the cost of that is far, far more unbearable than asking people to accept a smaller yacht.
