He is a bit verbose, but I sympathize with his point. The unfortunate misconception is that the tax rates of those making over $250K (or more recently, those making over $150K as stated by Biden while campaigning this week) will only go up a "few percentage points" as someone earlier responded. When you combine income tax rates, payroll taxes, SS taxes - not to mention capital gains taxes - those in this catagory could very easily be paying 50% or more of their gross income to the government. And I don't know about you, but making $150K or even $200K as a married couple in the DC area does not constitute "rich".

And with respect to the progressive tax system, it is true that we have a history of this system in the US, but what Obama is proposing is a bit different. Nearly 50% of the people in the US do not pay income taxes, so he is proposing to literally send them a check. This is not progressive taxation, but really is as close to socialism as we have ever seen in this country. I am all for social programs (like Welfare and SS) to help the disadvantaged in this nation, and in no way do I (or is McCain) propose we eliminate them. However, history has proven that excessive taxation, even of the supposedly "rich" - does the opposite of creating wealth. In fact - in every year that the government has raised the capital gains tax in the past - the government has collected LESS revenue!