The problem is that you have fallen into the trap of allowing the liberals to define "wealthy" to mean "high earner for the last tax year.
As rabscuttle385 pointed out:
"The problem with the income tax is that it doesn't tax existing wealth, only the creation of new wealth. As such, it serves as a barrier to entry to the upper classes of American society for those Americans who elect to climb the social ladder through hard, honest work."
The truly wealthy, like John Kerry and Teresa Heinz, can enjoy a fortune estimated at between $750 million and $1.2 billion, TAX FREE because they both married into it and because the Federal Government does not tax a single dollar of wealth.
Only "income" is taxed.
During the year that he ran for President, I paid more income taxes than Kerry did because my 6 day per week, very high volume, medical practice in an under-served, low reimbursement rural county brought me more income than John Kerry's Congress-critter salary.
During that year, I was "The Evil Rich" that was not "giving back to society" or doing or "paying my fair share".
Yet, there was Kerry, the champion of the poor, demanding more and more of me as he enjoyed the Billionaire lifestyle but paid less taxes than I did.
After a while, you can only drain so much blood out of a workhorse. Like many solo, high volume practitioners, I burned brightly like a shooting star until the day I simply burned out and retired last year in my mid-50's at an age two years younger than when my father dropped dead. Enough is enough.
So, now, the truly wealthy Kerry, who paid less income taxes than I did, is still worth hundreds of times more than I am worth. Whatever "wealth" I was able to save after the Government taxed me more than $100,000 per year for tax year after tax year after tax year, is what I have to carefully manage for the rest of my life.
I do think that taxes need to be raised but they need to be raised on the almost 50% of all Americans that currently pay ZERO income tax.
As the old joke goes, "When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you will always be assured of Paul's vote".
As long as Paul receives and receives and receives from the Government, at ZERO cost to himself, the more that Paul will want to tax and tax and tax Peter until the day comes when Peter drops dead from over-work or just says "F**k it!", like I did. Like Atlas, I shrugged.
By extending the tax base so that EVERY Paul has to pay at least something in income tax, even if it is a very small sum, you give Paul a stake in the desire to curtail unnecessary Government spending.
On the other hand, once you try to find more ways how to rob the remaing Peters to a greater degree, all you are doing is feeding Paul's appetite for more, more, more!
Any discussion of increasing taxes has to involve increasing taxes for EVERYBODY .... not just the ever dwindling supply of Peters.
Once the Pauls start sharing the tax pain, I guarantee that the Pauls will start bitching about LOWERING taxes and DECREASING Government spending.