I hear this a lot from those who identify as financial conservatives. I highly recommend listening to Marketplace’s Uncertain Hour season one to learn a bit more about what’s really happened with welfare in the last twenty years or so.
Season two is out now, too, about regulations. Learn all about peanut butter composition! Spoiler alert: Corporate lobbying causes inefficiency in the regulatory process! Government inefficiency is a distant #2.
I used to think exactly this way, when I was growing up in a conservative, religious, upper-middle-class white bubble. Then I went to college, moved out on my own, met a lot of people from other backgrounds, and realized just how much good fortune went into that “earned” wealth. @wumpus started a thread discussing a similar topic. I’m not saying that it’s entirely one or the other, but good fortune does play a role just as hard work and talent play a role. Therefore I believe it’s reasonable to take a good portion of what high-end earners have to (a) support the system that helped them get it and (b) give those who don’t have that good fortune a more level playing field. (For the record, I consider myself one of those high-end earners. Before I retired I was in the top 5%.)