I disagree with the message presented by this article, and I feel that it fails to address any of my concerns on the issue. I suspect that many liberals view things similarly to me.

I do not argue that rich people should pay the most simply because they have more wealth. I argue that rich people should pay the most because our system of government unfairly gives them more money than they deserve. The article made no mention of the means by which each of the ten people became the richest, and it thus did not address my argument.

I have written a different story, which might help present my viewpoint:

Caketon is a town where everybody wants cake. I mean, who wouldn't want cake? It's delicious. But cake in Caketon was scarce: everyone wanted more than they had. Fortunately, Mayor McCakes had a plan to change this, to bring more cake to everyone.

On the first day of the new year, Mayor McCakes annouced that there would be a cake-baking competition, where everyone would form into teams and bake cakes all day. Teams would be graded based on how delicious their cakes are and how many cakes they can bake.

"This is great", thought Ashley. "I'm a fantastic cake-baker." So Ashley quickly formed a team of ten people and entered her team into the contest.

But Cindy wasn't so pleased. "I've never been very good at baking cakes," she thought. But still, she was determined to win the prize, and she also put together a team of ten and entered the contest.

Both Ashley's team and Cindy's team worked very hard, and both teams made many delicious cakes. But in the end, Ashley's team clearly produced more cakes than Cindy's team, and Ashley's team's cakes tasted better. In the end, everyone agreed that Ashley's team was one of the winners, and Cindy's team was one of the losers.

After the contest Mayor McCakes congratulated everyone on a job well done. There would be enough cakes for everyone, he said. Since Ashley's team won, Ashley would receive all the cakes she can eat, and then even more. She'd also receive political power, fame, multiple houses, and a life that people only dream of. Ashley's team members, for their work, would each receive one cake per month. For losing, Cindy and her team would receive nothing, and they would have to move into smaller houses and recieved a docked income for the rest of the year.

Cindy was upset about this: how could so much be riding on a cake-baking competition? She and her team had done their best to produce good cakes, even if they were outmatched. So why did she deserve to lose so much for it?

Mayor McCakes explained the situation. If the punishment for losing were any softer, people wouldn't be encouraged to win the contest, and if they weren't encouraged to win the contest, they cakes wouldn't be as good.

Ashley's teammates were also unhappy. Why did Ashley get so much when they got so little? While the original idea for the cake was Ashley's, it was mostly the individual ideas and work of her teammates that won the contest.

Again, Mayor McCakes explained the situation. If the reward for having the winning team were not so huge, people would not want to form their own teams. Instead, they'd want to join up with a team they knew was going to win. This means that less creative people would start their own teams, and the cakes output wouldn't be as creative as it could be.

Cindy's team and Ashley's team were resigned to their fate, while Ashley lived happily ever after. The end.

Without a government, property doesn't exist. It is our government, our laws, which create property, and in doing so, they limit our freedom. Without property, I can take any object I want and do whatever I want with it. But because of property, I am not allowed to do anything with any object unless I am given government permission.

If a government is going to create property, to restrict people in this fashion, it is the government's responsibility to distribute that property as evenly and fairly as possible.

Our government has chosen the system of capitalism. We've chosen this system because under it, we can produce huge amounts of wealth, and this leads to more wealth for everyone.

Capitalism requires that some people be more wealthy than others. This is its method of encouraging people to work and do a good job. But Capitalism is a random contest: a cake-baking competition. Just because someone succeeds under capitalism doesn't make that person more deserving than anyone else.

Even under capitalism, our government is still responsible for distributing wealth evenly and fairly. Obviously this isn't one-hundred percent possible under capitalism, but we should still strive for a balance between pure capitalism and an even distribution of wealth, because that is the most fair way to do things.

All income is nothing more than property granted by our government. So the idea that the wealthy person is "contributing more" than the average person because he "is taxed more money" is false. The truth is, the wealthy person is contributing less than the average person. Both do an equal amount of work, but in the end, the government gives the wealthy person more property. The wealthy person takes the most from our government, not the average person.

If anyone is going to make a case that we should cut taxes on the wealthy, that case must stem from the argument that cutting taxes on the wealthy is best for our economy. It is absurd to pretend that cutting taxes on the wealthy is fair.