I agree with Drakino that it's important not to twist the statistics around too much. At the end of the day, there are lots of things that we ask our government to do that we cannot reasonably do, even with private industrial help. That includes things like maintaining a standing military force. It also includes police, fire, roads, and so forth, never mind future priorities that are too far out or too risky for companies to tackle (canonical example: ARPA support for what grew into the Internet).

Where's all that money supposed to come from? If you're in Saudi Arabia, the answer is that it comes from oil revenues. If you're in the U.S., you've got to look elsewhere. That means corporate taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, income taxes, and so forth. All of those represent a bunch of knobs that you can twist around to incentivize or disincentive behavior, all while trying to raise enough money to do what you need to do.

About those knobs: sure, you can go ahead and lower taxes on rich people, but where are you planning to increase taxes to compensate? Poor people? Unprofitable companies? The money has to come from somebody with the capacity to pay. And that is where rich people come into play, because they can afford it.