A family who earned $500k is likely putting lots of money into some sort of savings or investments while a family making $50k is likely living paycheck to paycheck. The $500k earner can part with a little extra to help benefit the greater good.

Also, your ridiculous “they worked harder and low income people are lazy” schtick is idiotic. Do you think someone who grew up in a poor family, went to an underfunded school district, had to work to help support the family, couldn’t afford college, and works multiple jobs just to live paycheck to paycheck is lazy? Or are the high income middle managers that grew up in high income families, went to good school districts, had college paid for by their parents, spend weekends at their lake house, have full time child care, and earn money off the backs of the lower income people the lazy ones?

So high income people don’t use roads, fire, police, the FAA, tax breaks for businesses, etc? They don’t indirectly benefit when their lower income employees, people at the store, people that use whatever drives the high income people’s earnings, etc. are using these social services including food assistance and Medicaid? Do high income people just live in a magical bubble where people have no interaction and connections to each other and they earn money without the input of anyone else? I’d love to live in this fantasy land with you.

They will be much more likely to incur medical bills they can’t pay.

Wow, you almost got the point there then got completely lost. Low income people can’t pay medical bills because they don’t have the money to do so. How will taxing them help that situation? You seem like a student of the “fuck you, I’ve got mine” school of thought.

Take the Waltons of Walmart fame as an extreme example. They are some of the richest people in America but their Walmart employees include people that are being paid so poorly they also need to collect social services such as food stamps and Medicaid. Walmart pays low wages knowing the employees can’t survive and will be assisted by the taxpayers. Paying lower wages means more profits and more money in the Waltons pockets at the expense of the employees. Do you think the Waltons are spending all their extra earnings on things that incur more taxes or are they just putting it away like a dragon on their pile of treasure?

Walmart also uses taxpayer funded services like public roads to move goods, the FAA and ATC for their corporate and private jets, tax breaks when they build new warehouses or stores, etc. So, are the underpaid Walmart employees the ones leaching off society or is it the high earners like the Waltons causing the issues?

This graphic is based on the percentage of income paid to taxes. A family making $500k a year paying a higher dollar amount than one making $50k a year is expected, but the higher earners should also be paying a higher percentage because 20% to them means a lot less sacrifice than 20% to a low income family. The sacrifice of not buying that third or fourth house is a lot less than whether the low income family goes to the doctor for a checkup.