I've met people who had taxable incomes over $250,000.
I don't remember the ones I actually knew ever having a huge amount of liquid assets, because they invested. The could have, IMO, afforded paying more income tax. I could afford paying more, but I'd rather not pay the amount I'd have to to make up for what isn't paid by those who CAN afford new cars, more house/houses than they need, vacations to exotic locations, or any number or amount of things THEY DON'T NEED TO SURVIVE.

I don't begrudge people having nice things, and I don't even automatically dislike wealthy people. It's how they treat other folks that counts.

As for the fiscal whoopsie-daisy, the folks on TV have been saying both sides have GOT to let us go over it. Repubs, so they can save the day later on by "reducing taxes" and Dems, so they can point to Repubs and say "those guys didn't care enough about Americans to do their fucking jobs." Not much different than now, but with some fairly hard-to-ignore evidence.

I think there's a slim possibility that something may happen to avert disaster, but I always try to expect magic. US politics has its own version of an infinite improbability drive, but it unfortunately follows Murphy's Law. I think that works out to "anything that can go wrong will, but it won't be what you expected."