Re: Look at the numbers
>>Given 60% + plus of the budget is Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security,
But it's not, it's 45% http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/44172-Baseline2.pdf you're probably bundling all the other mandatory payments such as interest on the national debt (hardly the fault of the poor?)
>>it's hard to escape two conclusions: one, you cannot fund it by just taxing the "rich"
Just by taxing the rich? the key point is that you can't magic money from nowhere, if "the rich" have more money than actually exists, something is desperately wrong, something like $220bn is just interest payments, and interest is "magic money", if you charge 10% interest then that 10% has to come from somewhere, it it will go to the person who has the money, the money must have been created somewhere along the line.
>>they don't have enough money, and two, the huge majority of federal budget goes on the less well off.
Where do you think money that pays for Social Security comes from? typically from the workers and companies they have worked for (a total of around 12.4% salary equivalent) - they have paid this in, and they will get some of it back (and your yearly statement confirms the amount), note, there is a cap after which the contribution stops being taken - i.e. when you earl a lot you keep more of it, does this make sense? and if this cap was removed the social security system would pay for itself - http://www.aging.senate.gov/crs/ss9.pdf (so yes, in this case taxing the rich fairly WOULD solve the problem).