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Well, Irish, your story is nice, but it doesn't have ANYTHING to do with reality.

You, see, how you claim it works is only part of the story. And, by leaving out the rest of it, you vastly misrepresent where the tax burden falls.

If we continue the analogy, we would find the resturant owner saying:
"Well, Rich Man, since you're such a good customer, and I want more business, I'm going to give you a discount. Let's say $10 off your portion of the bill."

This is BEFORE any of the other discounts. So, now he's paying $49, which is cut to $39 after the general bill reduction. And YES, the tax code does work this way.

To continue the analogy, let's say each of the customers have something to do with the running of the resturant-farm produce, lanundry and/or dishwashing services, furniture, dry good supplies, that sort of thing.

The restuarant owner says "Gee, I have to buy my supplies and services somewhere. In principle, I can make the most money if I please the richest sorts of people, so I'll make sure to steer my business towards the supplies and services owned by the richest of my costomers." So, he hires the poorest four to wash his dishes and do his lanudry. OK, great, now they get to eat for free, and still make a little bit of money for their other expenses. You with me so far? But he still has to make a profit, so he mkaes damn sure they get paid a paltry amount. People five, six and seven might be the waitrons, who are making a little bit of money, but still not enough to be damaging to the resaurant's profits. This is an absolute rule, or the systems goes kaput. People eight and nine own food distributors, so they are getting their own piece of the pie for now. Person ten, it turns out, owns furniture, paper, metal, and glass factories, as well as many of the farms that distributors eight and nine are buying from. Making the biggest share of the pie of all.

Then, the resturant owner finds he's starting to not make as much profit as he used to. In capitalistic terms, he is "losing" money. He's got to make up his profits somewhere, and decides that if he can't borrow money (run a deficit business), he's going to have to raise income. Can't raise the price of meals (tax increase, in this analogy), that would drive his best customers away.

Ah, he says, "user fees", "surcharges", that sort of thing. Ah, everybody, and this means everybody, including employees, must start using the pay toilets. Then there's a napkin fee. A surcharge for using the chairs. A cover fee for using the restaurant in the first place. A toothpick surcharge. YOu should get teh picture by now.

Not one of these fees or surcharges takes into account progressive income. In this analogy, it's going to amount to just about the weekly income of the poorest four, who are employed by the restaruant owner. They are barely able to get by, no matter how hard they work. The middle income people are grumbling, but they can't afford to go eat at someplace in the Carribean or Europe, so they just grin and bear it. The richest man, well, he might go some other place occasionally, but hey, he's making the most money off this arrangement, and living pertty comfortably off what he's makijng, too, so he has no reason to fuck with it.

You bet your sweet ass our tax system exploits the poorest and middle income people. That's how our tax system REALLY works.