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I understood parent's point to be that we obviously can't trust them to do better than this. In any case it seems clear that this is exactly why high tax rates hurt the middle class more than the rich. And everyone know it, and yet it persists.

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Typically it's because taxing the super rich wouldn't be enough, so you tax a broad swath of the population.

Billionaires (put together) in the US hold something similar to 1 year of federal tax receipts, for example. Tax them into the ground and you get 1 year of revenue.

This is one of the more interesting points that gets lost in the "tax the rich" talk. I believe this is because people's general political point of reference is their individual situation and not the overall system - but from the system point of view it truly is just a drop in the bucket.

Eh, the top 1% of earners are responsible for c15% of income. Bear in mind that these will be on a higher tax band too, so a figure of c25% of income tax revenue is pretty likely - hardly a drop in a budget.

For the US it doesn't so much matter who is taxed or how much. We cannot break even if you take into account unfunded liabilities.

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