This. In my opinion, fairness requires having skin in the game. Lots of people have a say in how money is spent via votes but are not feeling the burden of cont

This. In my opinion, fairness requires having skin in the game. Lots of people have a say in how money is spent via votes but are not feeling the burden of contributing to that pot. Contributing proportionally would give them skin in the game and they would all of a sudden discover the importance of demanding fiscal responsibility from those that are governing. The progressive taxation approach doesn't even leave those at the bottom better off. The market still uses price discovery to figure out prices. All the progressive taxation approach does is eliminate a cost and lower the price of labor to be equal to what labor is demanding. If labor had to also pay their fair share of taxes, they'd demand the amount they need plus the amount they need to pay in taxes. An alternative that achieves fairness is to have no income tax and instead only have payroll taxes. This way no individual is bilked because they were successful. I still prefer a flat sales tax because you shouldn't tax what you want to see more of in society, the labor to make society work, but only having a payroll tax would at least solve the fairness issue. The only problem with the payroll tax approach is that the skin in the game expectation has one drawback. Those that are in most demand in the jobs marketplace is at the least risk of advocating for a higher payroll tax across the board. Raising the payroll taxes could make some roles no longer profitable and companies could cut those roles to achieve a better ROI.