Taxing the rich

[AreYouReady?]

Ok. I have a question here. Can somebody please explain to me why some political leaders want to tax more money from the rich?

At what point does one become 'rich'?

I'm looking at this from a point of view in that if a man or woman spends hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher education and he/she invests 8 years of their life learning and becoming a professional, why should they be penalized by being taxed if they open up a professional office and earn some money after doing all of that?

Or why should a man who built up a business from scratch and hard work be penalized through the taxing system?

I'm all for helping the poor..especially those who become poor through no fault of their own...but shouldn't some of the poor be helping themselves some too?

I grew up in poverty. There was no help for me while I was growing up. We starved. But I did have a small window of opportunity in which the state paid my tuition to learn a vocational job after I moved to this region as a young adult.

Nowdays, in my region, the counties pay for the tuition for high school graduates so there should be no excuse for the young men and women not to earn good enough grades in high school to be eligible for this free tuition. Yet, it seems like so many deliberately fail or end up having babies ...like they deliberately sabotage their future. Why should someone who works hard to get through the university and graduate school be taxed to pay for lazy people?