I agree about taxing the hell out of the rich...won't happen in the US anytime soon though.
The problems with taxing the hell out of "the rich" are:
First, just where would you draw the line between "the rich" and "the rest of us"?
Would you say a household that earns more than $100,000 a year should be considered rich and therefore should have the hell taxed out of them?
Let's call that our line, so that anyone who earns less than $100,000 a year pays nothing in taxes while anyone who earns over $100,000 a year pays 50% of their earnings in taxes.
Second, as someone works hard and begins to earn more money in their career and they start to approach that line, suddenly they will become much less interested in working harder to gain more money and more interested in taking time off or gaining other perks and they will become less productive. That makes sense because at $99,999 a year they get to keep $99,999 but at $100,000 they get to keep only $50,000.
Third, people who can't avoid earning over $100,000 a year will have a substantial incentive to move to a place with more favorable tax laws and we will get $0 out of them.
Last, anywhere you draw the line, with inflation and devaluing of currency, that line between "the rich" and "the rest of us" keeps getting thinner and thinner.