This is why you should laugh very loudly when somebody suggests that a progressive tax code is "punishing the rich".
We have basically a flat tax on corporate income that effectively favors monopolists and cartels, especially if vertically-integrated. Thus a mom-and-pop manufacturing business is taxed as heavily as Exxon-Mobil.
Progressive taxation created niches for small businesses -- veritable cottage industries as local banks, mom-and-pop restaurants and groceries, and small-scale manufacturers. We used to have lots of independent pharmacists; that is over. Giant, monopolized, vertically-integrated businesses find ways to cut back employment -- for which executives are richly rewarded. Those are not job-creators.
Right-wing pols encourage Big Business to create poverty through pressure on the wages of those who still have jobs and by squeezing out business.
