The progressive tax is pretty severe. Estimates are that the highest earning 1% of the people in America pay more income taxes than the bottom 95%. Of course, the bottom 50% pay no income tax, so they have no interest in tax reductions. My opinion is that most people should have to pay something for the privilege of living in the US, even if it is a small amount. Otherwise they don't have a stake in the country. (I guess that liberals like the idea of no personal responsibility for anything.) Democrat politicians really vilify that top 1% who make a lot of money. My impression is that Democrats would like to drive those nasty people out of the country. Communists have done that, or even killed them, in a lot of countries like Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Cuba. It didn't work out well in those places, and some of them have reverted to free markets. Others, like Cuba didn't, and are very poor.