What ever happened to taxes?

"As it prepares to pay out big bonuses to employees, Goldman Sachs is considering expanding a program that would require executives and top managers to give a certain percentage of their earnings to charity." (From the Times) Christ, what kind of society is America, after all? Relying on the idle rich to give some of their ill-gotten gains to charity--isn't that more like some oldtime monarchy or something? It sure doesn't sound like the US, does it? At least not the US I recall from my youth. The graduated income tax is where we're supposed to get the money to support society; the progressive (get it?) income tax.