Bigger tax for bigger business. Fair enough.
These things have a way of scope creeping.
Edit: about $27,000[1].
[1]: https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1861?amount=800
> The Revenue Act of 1913 ... established a one percent tax on income above $3,000 per year; the tax affected approximately three percent of the population.
Put another way: you can't tax destitute people (at least not for long, and not without losing your head), but can absolutely can tax the average American household in 2021[1].
[1]: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2022/demo/p60-27...
When (or if) they protest new measures, they're gaslit as if their concerns are hyperbolic and that scope creep isn't a thing that happens.
Fauci and others admitted to intentionally misleading people. In particular, I'm thinking of when they were trotting out the % of the population that would need to be vaccinated, which crept up from 60% to over 85, before they stopped talking numbers altogether.[0]
Now, you've got people who were already predisposed to mistrust authority who will flat-out disbelieve anything that comes out of the CDC, even if the CDC told them the sky was blue.