Taxation and the middle class

[ac3r]

Imagine thinking you’re entitled to pay less than others do for public services because your income is acquired a different way

I can't agree with that. Why should people who have earned more through their own volition be obligated to give a government a significantly larger sum of those earnings than others do? How is that fair? If I chose to guide my life in a way that has resulted in an abundance of wealth, that all belongs to me minus what at least should be fairly taxed. It is mine and mine only. If the government can't afford to do its job, then it should be making cuts where necessary and finding ways to earn more, rather than expecting those with more of it to give it to them. I also find it absurd that many of the general population has also somehow got the idea into their head the whole "eat the rich" rhetoric, where there is almost some sort of psychological envy that makes them resent and hate wealthier people than them, to the point they have deluded themselves into thinking they should be entitled to some of that (through however the state would use it, if it were more heavily taxed).

Any expectation that a government should be given the authority to heavily tax those who have more is authoritarian. To quote Ludwig von Mises:

The state is a human institution, not a superhuman being. He who says “state” means coercion and compulsion. He who says: There should be a law concerning this matter, means: The armed men of the government should force people to do what they do not want to do, or not to do what they like. He who says: This law should be better enforced, means: The police should force people to obey this law. He who says: The state is God, deifies arms and prisons. The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments. The state can be and has often been in the course of history the main source of mischief and disaster.

We should pay fair taxes as a population, but nobody should be forced to pay more because they have more. The wealthy and the less wealthy all use said public services on more or less equal terms, therefore we should be paying an equal share for it. And if the government needs more money to run the country they were entrusted to correctly run, then they should figure it out. If it can't do that, dissolve it because they are clearly a bad government.