When I was a kid, I made minimum wage and paid little, if anything, in taxes. Over time, I worked up to making a decent amount and paying a lot more than my fair share. For most of this year, I chose not to work, so I will pay very little. I have moved freely throughout the various marginal tax rates, but at no time did the rules themselves change due to my actions.
At no time were the rules any different for me than they were for you. If you had made the same decisions as I did, we would have paid the same amount. If I had made the same decisions as you did, we would have paid the same amount. Same for everyone in the country.
I don’t think it is anywhere near fair (and we’ll never have fairness when it comes to taxation). But the rules are applied equally to everyone.
“at no time did the rules themselves change due to my actions”
No, the same way the rule against murderer doesn’t change whether you murderer someone or not. But its application to you changes. At one income level one rule applies, at another, another.
“At no time were the rules any different for me than they were for you”
Again, they stayed the same, but if we were in different brackets different ones applied; you paid one rate and I another.
“If you had made the same decisions as I did, we would have paid the same amount”
Yes, but maybe I didn’t and we paid different amounts. How can you say the same rules applied?