That’s the central question we should be asking ourselves—and we should be electing our government representatives on the basis of the answer.

For example: the Progressive-Democrats in the Maine State legislature are looking to add a 3% income tax “surcharge” on any Maine citizen who makes $200,000 or more per year. The rationalization for this is provided by Progressive-Democrat State Senator Ben Chipman:

If someone is making $1 million a year, they can afford to pay a higher tax rate than somebody who is making $20,000 a year[.]

If they can afford it, they’re somehow obligated to pay it. That imagined obligation can only flow from the Progressive-Democrats’ view that the money we earn isn’t our money, it’s Government’s money, and Government—the men and women in Government—will let us keep what they deem sufficient to our needs.

After all, as a prominent Progressive-Democrat almost said, a short while ago,

If you’ve got [an income], you didn’t [earn] that. Somebody else made that happen.

As that man also said,

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me, because they want to give something back.

What the Progressive-Democrat chose to misconstrue, though—what Progressive-Democrats as a group choose to misconstrue—is that “give back” means “Government take back.”

Because Government, according to Progressive-Democrats, isn’t really taking back; Government is keeping and giving back a portion of what it doesn’t believe is ours to begin with.

Someone who is wealthier than me is somehow obligated to pay more than me for the same good, service, benefit I’m getting? I pay $X for a car or a meal out but my neighbor, who has a higher income than me, should have to pay $X++ for that same car or meal out? Just because he can afford to pay $X++?

How does that work, exactly? Where is the morality in that? Where is the equality in that? Where is the Progressive-Democrats’ precious equity in that?

From Luke 12:48 (King James Version):

For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

Absolutely. Hence the desire of those who want to give something back.

But that’s the thing. The obligation is levied by God on us as individuals, not by Government on us as a collection of citizens, and it’s an obligation for each of us to give according to our chosen methods and beneficiaries (and by extension, to choose wisely), not an authorization for Government to take according to Government men’s choices (and by extension, to be subject to their arbitrariness).