The OP subscribes to a narrative which is seductive: if you tax the productive in order to reward the unproductive, you will incentivize failure -- you will undermine the very productivity which provides jobs, innovation, and rising living standards for all.
This has been the dominant narrative since Reagan.
Here's the problem. It ignores the era of America's greatest economic growth, the late postwar years from 1950-1973, a time when the government made sure that middle class compensation (wages, benefits, & standard-of-living increases) was tied to overall economic growth. Meaning: when productivity increased and more money was made, the government ensured that workers got a corresponding increase of pay/benefits so that they could buy what they were producing. Gains in productivity were tied to gains in compensation -- ensuring that demand would always be strong enough to drive the economy. When people spend more, jobs are added. When they don't have money to spend, jobs are lost.
Here is pre-Reagan narrative: the American economy thrives not when the producers have the maximum amount the nation's wealth, but when the middle class is solvent enough to buy what it produces. If too much money is concentrated in too few hands, and the middle class does not have enough to spend, the economy will die [Again: the economy only works when people have the money to buy things]
Which is why during the postwar years the government focused on middle class buying power - aka "demand". The theory: the more money the middle class has to spend, the more jobs/innovation/investment the producers will have to add in order to capture that demand.
Contrast this with the Reagan years (1980-present), where the dominant focus is not middle class buying power, but lowering the costs (taxes and regulations) of the suppliers ("Supply Side Economics"). Under this strategy middle class compensation is actually lowered in order to give capital cheaper operating conditions (cheaper labor costs). Indeed, over the past 30 years we have created a global system designed to give capital the mobility to constantly move to the cheapest labor market.
One effect of this is that the middle class started to lose buying power -- they no longer had as much money to buy things and drive the American economy. How did Reaganomics make up for this demand shortfall? Credit! The American credit industry exploded in the 80s in order to supplement the weakened buying power of the middle class, which middle class, like their political leaders, became a nation of deficit spenders. Put another way: rather than paying the middle class sufficient wages to buy things and keep the economy afloat, the Suppliers would now loan them the money.
What happens when you use debt to fuel demand for 30 years? You eventually break the bank. What happens when you break the bank? You bail out the suppliers, and foreclose on the borrowers. Why did we bail out the crooked suppliers who knowingly securitized garbage and loaded the system with risk which they knew would blow up? We bailed out the suppliers because the suppliers run government. Their donations fund elections and staff government
When too much money gets stuck in too few hands -- when trillions are spread over a narrow class of suppliers and the middle class must borrow to survive -- the economy eventually dies. And since the middle class doesn't have real money to spend, the suppliers have no incentive to invest in the real economy: there is no demand to capture - there is no reason to add jobs or innovate.
The original poster has told us a very old, tired narrative. He doesn't understand that Reaganomics (adopted by both parties) lead to an over-concentration of wealth and political power in the hands of the suppliers, while simultaneously choking middle class buying power. When you give cheap labor to capital, one consequence is that labor doesn't have enough buying power to buy what it produces. This is a structural flaw that Keynes (who was a capitalist) understood better than anyone. Point is: the middle class is too big to fail. Without their buying power, the American economy dies.
"You must spread some Reputation around etc."
