Arguments like this are completely selling ourselves short on our ability as a species/society to innovate and come up with new ideas that improve our life for

Arguments like this are completely selling ourselves short on our ability as a species/society to innovate and come up with new ideas that improve our life for everyone. I'm sorry, but it drives me absolutely nuts! Come on guys, are we really saying that we aren't capable of continuing to come up with new ideas and grow them into sustainable businesses that lift a majority of Americans out of poverty?? What a positive, optimistic this author has on our future, not to mention his faith in the capabilities of fellow human beings. Instead of jumping into many of the circular arguments below of where costs are truly incurred from things such as taxes on the rich and on corporations, let's think of taxation in a different way - as valves controlling where capital flows in our economy. Think of taxes as valves in a hydraulic system or switches/relays in an electrical system. If those valves aren't directing the right amount of electricity or hydraulic oil to the right parts of the system, the entire system stops working. In the same line of thinking, if not enough capital is going to the right places in our economy, our economy slows down and stops working. So, the question becomes, where do we need to adjust the valves to get the entire system working again? Where can we cut taxes, to give that sector of the economy a boost? It's small businesses, innovators/inventors, and early stage startups. Why? Because if 1 out of every 1,000 businesses started turns into the next Microsoft or GM and employs 100,000 people, then we need 10m people out of work right now/100,000 jobs per Microsoft startup*1,000 startup businesses = 100,000 startups. There's a reason the first round of capital for starting a company typically comes from friends and family - because it's extremely risky, and those closest to the entrepreneur can make that investment at the lowest risk possible because they have insider knowledge of the entrepreneur's skillset. If we have a disappearing middle class, that means that very first round of capital is disappearing too, because it comes from the middle class, which means 10 years from now, we will have even fewer jobs for the middle class. I'll leave it up to everyone else to debate how we can get more money into the hands of the middle class, but taxing the rich and providing a basic income for everyone is not the answer.