As the election approaches, the debate continues to heat up over whether Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s tax proposals square up with his pledge not to raise taxes on households earning less than $400,000 per year. Rather than getting caught up in wonky debates over whether proposals like Biden’s itemized deduction cap violate his pledge, however, we should question why Biden made his tax pledge in the first place — and why proponents of tax hikes have increasingly sought revenue from an ever-narrowing segment of high-earning people.

The discussion over who will be impacted by Biden’s tax plan and who, if any taxpayer, should be paying more in taxes reveals a common but damaging, trend: An increasingly small number of taxpayers have been targeted to pay for a growing amount of proposed spending.