A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government....Thomas Jefferson The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not....Thomas Jefferson And from another post: To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association—the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it....Thomas Jefferson I don't agree with Eisenhower, and the progressive income tax did not exist in this country before Woodrow Wilson's Administration (it is still a Marxist tenant regardless). Before that, you had monarch's who levied taxes to support all kinds of things: altruistic as well a petty.