I would love to be "rich" someday but I will have no motivation to accomplish that if it is then all taxed away.

Yeah. That's how it works. You'll still be rich. The fact that you pay more taxes would merely be an indication of that. It's not like you'd be making $100k more and all of it gets taken away again. It's a sliding scale, not stepped.

I find these flat-taxers asinine. Obviously, the person making $200k a year should pay the same percentage as those making $20k a year, because having to live on $120k is the same penalty as having to live on $12k.