How about society gave you nothing then, and left you to live like an animal?
Not in a city -- because cities are established and built collectively, with infrastructure, and roads, and so on. Not allowed to use and own money, because that's a public good. Not allowed to have a citizenship (because a country is about people working together). No protection from thugs (because the police is a social good), and so on?
Things aren’t as black and white as that. There’s a difference between paying a reasonable amount of taxes and having everyone share some of the burden versus a lawless Mad Max style society. The current system is setup to punish the group that I (and probably a lot of developers) belong to. We pay a huge portion of our income in taxes and for me at least, an additional massive chunk of income to insurance post-ACA. Poor people get healthcare and many other things for free. Rich people mostly pay 15% capital gains tax. If you’re in the middle class, the screws come out right as you start succeeding. There’s a massive structural push to keep middle class people in the middle class and I don’t think that’s fair.
It's not a punishment; that sort of language is tantamount to sophistry. The tax structure in the US sucks, especially with how, the more you have, the more you can dodge supporting the country that obviously made you so very rich.
But, it's not a punishment. It's just a shitty set of laws -- fortunately, laws can change.
> the more you have, the more you can dodge supporting the country that obviously made you so very rich.
My point is this is not true for people who are on the upper end of middle class. You can't dodge anything because your income is taxed at income tax rates, not capital gains rates. You also get all benefits stripped from you as you rise in income. Can't get any breaks on health insurance, can no longer put money into a Roth IRA... Also remember, I'm not just talking about taxes. I'm talking about taxes plus the structure of the ACA.
The system is absolutely designed to put the middle class at the largest disadvantage. Whether you want to call it unfair or a punishment seems like personal preference.
