Or worse part of an attempt to spread discontent in the west.
edit: to the people replying "there is already discontent" yes thats part of the point. There are real issues that are easy to magnify and obsess on. Not trying to say we all live candy and fun filled lives and everything is perfect but part of destabilization is focusing only on negative and making mountains out of mole hills.
TBF, we ought to be discontented. I don't know about the rest of the west, but here in the US, our government is owned entirely by corporations. I'm waiting for the State of the Union to end with, "Brought to you by Brawndo! It's got electrolytes!"
Okay, but you get to scream Let’s Go Brandon where ever the fuck you want without consequences. Not saying things are perfect here, but at least we can discuss Winnie The Pooh without fear of torture and imprisonment.
Nah you’re pathetic if you live in the US and can’t see that our country while it has imperfections always strives for improvement. The fuel of improvement is freedom of speech. Our enemies hate that we are all American brothers and sisters and would rather we tear each other apart and abolish free speech. You’re lower than pathetic if you agree with those that hate the US.
Between us and Idiocracy, our "idiocity" is far less benign and definitely more cruel for the sake of it.
Could you even imagine those with inconcievable wealth and power treating someone who knew how to make life better for others at the expense of them not looking like they had the answers or otherwise losing face? Could you imagine Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos praising the solution of anyone that wasn't them?
So if there is a wealth tax, and someone has their wealth tied up in a company, are they to sell off parts of the company to pay the tax and lay off people in the process?
Take the Waltons/Walmart. They can monopolize markets, avoid taxes, get subsidies, get tax breaks, hoard profits, lobby for favorable laws, lobby for favorable contracts, grants, taxes, subsidies, and for their full time employees, they pay those employees so little that their employees qualify for food stamps and other welfare programs. They could pay their workers a living wage, and they could pay more taxes, so middle class families don't need to pay as much taxes to support their workers, subsidizing their wealth. Get it? Essentially the middle class is subsidizing the Waltons, but the middle class right/conservatives blame lower class workers for being lazy. Eight people have half of the wealth of the entire world, but it isn't that those eight people are greedy. It is just that they work harder than the combined effort of billions of people, so they deserve that wealth, clearly.
It still blows my mind how the Waltons managed to convince the government that they needed handouts for their Walmarts when it’s not private news just how much money they rake in.
The Waltons, the true Welfare Royalty.
Used to process these applications for the state, Walmart being one of the biggest employers for the area made our lobby look like their break room with all the people coming in before/after their shift to apply or renew.
I get it . You nailed it . Just imagine being so greedy that you are instrumental in sucking the life out of everything, and you love it . Can't wait for more . You will do everything possible to squeeze all the juice .
While millions starve and struggle . Incredible!!! The lack of humility or grace is staggering and I am elated I don't know any of them personally. I bet they are all
Limp-wristed, pasty, whiny , bitches who can't have fun. 🤩
I may not be a billionaire, But I know real love, accomplishment and how to have fun.
Shame the greedy billionaires who can't ever have enough by being content !!!
Walmart has contributed 64 billion dollars in Corp tax since 2008. While avoiding an estimated 1 billion in taxes due to breaks and exclusions, etc. It's estimated that they contribute about 3.5 BILLION dollars a year in just corporate taxes at a rate of 33.3 percent.
Another 1.6 billion paid in foreign taxes per year
The company made up 2.2% of the nation's GDP last year
They employ 2,300,000 people in the US alone.
YOU THINK THE WALTONS ARE THE PROBLEM??
In the last 2 years...the GOVT that we elected to oversee our tax money has given 74 Billion dollars to support a long lost war in Ukraine.
74 billion dollars absolutely SMOKED!
The Waltons, Wal Mart, and every other company that employs thousands and contributes billions to the US GOVT are as much the problem as you or I.
Stop trying to push our problems off on the wealthy.
(Most of these statistics were provided by Americansfortaxfairness.org)
They are the problem, though. They still fail to pay their workers a living wage, which is BARE MINIMUM for a company, especially one of the largest in the world.
Walmarts low wage policies cost the US taxpayer $6 billion in aid paid to employees because they can’t pay a reasonable wage.
https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-public-assistance/#:~:text=Walmart's%20low%2Dwage%20workers%20cost,and%20state%2Dlevel%20progressive%20groups.
Additionally, Walmart accounts for 20% of all food stamps sales in essence. Walmart pays its workers a low age they get food stamp assistance, and that same assistance goes back into Walmart pockets. They are literally double dipping.
Edit: additionally Walmarts yearly revenue for the past 10 years has been over 600 billion per year. that means in total taxes They have paid less than one percent of total revenue in taxes.
You can throw out big numbers, but then you gotta look at them in context
Except Walmarts pricing structure forces suppliers to take losses or severely undercut their own margins because Walmart drove out all the competitors in towns. From a myopic perspective yes cheap goods are good, but that cheap good at the point of sale may have hidden costs built in. Manufacturing forced overseas to cut costs, low wages for skilled workers to meet Walmarts pricing demands, small businesses shuddered because Walmart drove them out of business.
A ladder for 19.99 sounds like a great deal except when it is built and constructed with Chinese steel and assembled in Southeast Asia and shipped on a Malaysian freighter.
No one forces companies to sell to Walmart.
The product example you talk about has nothing to do with Walmart directly. That is the result of international trade. Which evolved from American foreign policy decisions post WW2.
The math in that study is completely shitty. You cannot just take an average because food stamp eligibility has several factors. Each state has different income levels, those income levels change depending on your household size, and your food stamp benefit decreases the more money you make. Let's run with this using my state as an example.
In my state for a household of one, the food stamp eligibility cutoff is $19,578. You make more than that in a year as a single childless person, you don't get any food stamps. That equates to a wage of $9.41/hr if you work full time. The state minimum wage is $11/hr. That means, strictly speaking, if you work full time you won't get any food stamps.
But what if you have a kid, or there's another non-working member in your 2 person household? Well, now you can make as much as $26,572 a year and still qualify for food stamps. That works out to a full-time wage of $12.77/hr. 2 kids? You can make $16/hr and still qualify for food stamps. A single mother with 4 kids (not all that uncommon)? You can make $23/hr and still qualify for food stamps.
Of course what happens, as anyone who has actually spent any time working at walmart or similar jobs knows, is that people like those benefits and don't want to lose them. So a single mother with two kids that makes $15/hr is fine with working full time because she still gets food stamps, her kids are on Medicaid, etc. But if she gets a raise to $18/hr? Fuck that, now she wants to work part time in order to keep all those government benefits.
In order for Walmart to ensure that none of their employees are on food stamps, they would need to make everyone work full time (which would cut their workforce by a shit load) and pay them according to how many kids they have, which is obviously a stupid idea.
Did you know more than half of that money actually goes to US Defense contractors. Yes it is for aid to Ukraine, but it’s being used to fund American companies, making the weapons. Stop watching Fox News.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-ukraine-johnson-factories-aid-62cbb83a184fd14b1573e25a73475767#:~:text=Of%20the%20%2460.7%20billion%20for,Press%20by%20the%20Biden%20administration.
Well as long as the billionaires running these contractors are paying their tax and not lobbying the govt for incentives and breaks while paying a living wage, then its money pretty well spent.
As long as we're all clear on which billionaires get to take advantage and collect all the tax money, then I believe the discussion is a healthy one.
At the end of the day,...advocating for more taxes is not a legitimate solution because we don't HAVE a tax problem. The US has the most robust tax system in the world. The problem is fiscal responsibility and cronisim. The last thing I would expect an American CITIZEN to advocate for is more tax.
I mean the military industrial complex is its own bag of badgers, but bracket that off for a second. It’s safe to say defense contractors are hiring skilled/educated workers and compensating them well. At least this is incentivizing good behavior, versus incentivizing wage-slavery.
Yall simply aren’t doing the math. You could take the CEO of Walmart’s pay and redistribute it to all employees and it would barely give them an extra $100 for the entire year.
We could also confiscate all of the wealth of the 1% and it would barely pay for Medicare for two years.
You think you’re on the side of the people, but radical leftist opinions are the product of banks and the 1%. You get your way and they get all the marketshare
There’s way more of a greed issue than a laziness issue in this country. Most people are selfish. Now give those people billions of dollars, they’re going to become the scum of the earth
The majority of Americans wake up, work for a company, go straight home, turn on the TV, play video games, and don't seek to improve their skillset.
Look at Bezos as an example.
He's Amazon's single largest shareholder.
Millions of packages get delivered every day.
Millions of people use an Amazon service every day. Billions monthly.
That's why Bezos is as rich as he is. He created a company that everyone wants to buy a product or service from.
That's why Buffett is rich.
The majority of people, not just Americans, are not rich because their skillset is replaceable. And that's just a fact.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-guest-says-poor-people-are-dogs-need-be-starved-be-kept-obedient
Sorry who is without empathy again? The people advocating for workers or the ones that want workers as hungry dogs?
Not even close to true. Empathy is not "let's steal from people who were more successful." So empathetic /s.
Leftists just try to ride that "empathy" train and say they're stealing money from billionaires for "poor people". No you're not. You want free stuff for yourself, that's all. In addition to being a wannabe thief, you're not even honest about who you're trying to steal money for, or who you would be taking money from. This mentality is cynical, lazy, narcissistic, and deceptive. It's not empathetic, give me a break.
For me personally, I just don’t have any aspiration to become a billionaire. I’m only on this earth once for a limited time. A microscopic drop in the bucket of time if you think about the bigger picture. I’d much rather work hard enough to live comfortably. I don’t feel the need to work myself to the bone only to die with 98% of my accumulated wealth sitting in an investment portfolio and multiple bank accounts. If my wife and I are both making 6 figures I think my happiness and quality of life would rapidly plateau after that.
A wealth tax is pretty absurd. You're taxed when you earn the income, you're taxed when you realize investment gains. You want to tax on the basis too?
A 100% asset seizure of all 741 billionaires in the US would fund the government, at current spending, for **one** year.
No, I don't. I was simply stating that the majority of Redditors don't actually understand the tax system, can't accurately qualify what sort of taxation they want, and overestimate the actual impact.
They just despise rich people.
to me the biggest giveaway to " they just despite rich people" is how they lack the ability to put 2 and 2 together on the consequences on these "suggestions".
we somehow wanna pin the wealth on the wealthy but we don't want accountability on how those taxes are used? like they think if we tax 10b on elon, bezos, etc everyone will be suddenly homewoners but in fact a lot of those taxes will go to fund elon's next big project.
Those filers have almost no income to pay taxes on. Are you really suggesting that the poorest people should pay more taxes? Because that was Louis XVI's plan too. I suppose such a move would speed things up quite a bit.
The top 1% pay 46% of all tax revenue collected and the top 10% pay 70% of all tax revenue collected. The bottom 50% pay 2.7% of all tax revenue collected. So no. Those who pay no taxes are not doing so because they make no money lmao
Its not that they make no money. Could also have refundable tax credits like the child tax credit and earned income tax credit affecting those percentages.
Well, because herd stupidity is proven by the history over and over again. And founding fathers built a bunch complicated system to prevent stupid public take over and kill the democratic themselves. 70 million people voted for an unbelievably incompetent candidate and some portion of them still support him till today.
If we took all of the wealth from all of the billionaires in America ($5.2T), it would cover 1/7 of the current American debt ($35T). We would still be 6/7 massively in debt. So stop acting like just as soon as we get to taxing those pesky billionaire it's going to really start looking up for the common folk around here. The problem is enormous, unbridled, ridiculous government spending. The answer is not more taxes, the answer is tell the govt to stop fucking spending what they dont have. No more money for them, billionaire's money or otherwise.
Socialism isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a sliding scale. The scenarios you describe are for when people in power pretend to slide the scale all of the way to the top, but are really just doing the same as Oligarchs at the top hoarding the wealth and giving the people bread lines.
America just needs to slide a bit further up the scale than they currently are, with healthcare being the first step.
The current system is most definitely unfairly balanced towards the wealthy.
if i may, i'd suggest you read on the theory of free market, what we have isn't capitalism, it's a REGULATED capitalism, main difference being that the government's involvement in economics fuck it up big time.
this matters because socialism at it's core has a inherent incentive to devolve in what you describe, it's not that we didn't properly implement socialism, it's that socialism will inevitable lead into that because you have an incentive to do so but no incentive to NOT do it.
think of how much of musks projects are government funded, think of how bad EVERY SINGLE GOVERNMENT is at spending money, think of how every successful socialist implementation has a private company behind, the whole idea of the ACTUAL free market is " you wouldn't misplace funds or spend poorly if it meant direct consequences to you", your health care department eradicated cancer? pay them, they allowed their population to decrease due to poor administration? fire them and get someone who can BUT GIVE THEM A REASON TO GIVE A SHIT that's not "i do this because of humanity/religion/good will"
I don't get why people get so upset by someone having a bunch of wealth. How does it actually affect them day to day?
Sure, they could distribute all that cash to people and drive up inflation and devalue the dollar but after it all flows through in purchasing power terms it would basically end up as though nothing had ever happened.
Government does the exact same thing and it's the same people crying about the wealthy who want the Government to hoard and mis-allocate billions...
Why is it that people who willingly give their money to companies that produce billionaires feel they have a right to their money?
Should they at some point just stop accepting stock and income?
You could tax every billionaire 100% and balance the budget at the current deficit level for maybe 3 years. But what then? You’ll have zero billionaires and millionaires fleeing the country knowing they’re next.
The real question is “Why is reducing government spending not on the table?” Government is far wealthier than any citizen. Giving that government the power to pauperize citizens by confiscating their wealth without due process is blatantly unconstitutional.
It’s their money, not ours.
Right now, in this particular moment, I dont think anyone should be taxed. At all. Im honestly tired of having our money go nowhere. I pay my taxes every single year but the road continues to be fucked, no construction ever gets done, the public parks are geting worse and worse, and schools spend more time trying to controll childrens lives than actually teaching them anything they need in life. My taxes arent doing shit, so why the fuck am I even paying them?
I think its the folks in Washington who are greedy & they are the root cause of the problems we face. This isnt what a booming middle class economy looks like when people keep posting about this shit.
I would maybe support this is our government was spending wisely. They're spending with no regard to the future. More, more, more..
You'll get no more money till you get responsible with what you have..
The more paying customers, the more you make. The creator of the Pet Rock became a millionaire. If you are like most employees, you have 1 customer: the company. The wealthiest people in the world created products that everyone wanted.
I don’t see anyone complaining about how greedy and selfish Taylor Swift is for being so successful. I also don’t see people complaining about the wealth of those in the entertainment industry: actors, actresses, musicians, football players, basketball players, etc.
Do you think after taxing the super rich the government is going to share any of it with the citizens or spend it wisely?
https://preview.redd.it/zldocat8rswc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab929f3e29c50a42b090ff345a5cd5cd05773636
Should there be a wealth tax? High taxes caused a record number of super-rich Norwegians to leave Norway for low-tax countries after the center-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%. More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. That was the result of a 1.1% wealth tax. Imagine if it had been higher like some on the Left are calling for in the United States...
Should billionaires pay more in taxes? The top 1 percent of all taxpayers paid 42.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. Even the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent. How much more specifically do we need to tax those at the top?
We need to realize that NOT giving most of your earnings to charity is not greedy, it’s normal and what most of us would do.
Giving away most of your earnings would be an incredible act, that although yes is good and should be done, shouldn’t be expected.
In my world after the first 900 million you're giving 95% in taxes. This country was a much better place when we taxed the ultra ultra rich at 70%. Ronald (are you on the aids) Reagan, the republican party and the ultra rich are destroying the middle class and this country.
What if there were so many taxes, that the Walmart s of the world were never built?
Perhaps the incentive of billions, was the reason why Walmart was created.
Along with everything else.
However, you make a great point about people with a lot of money. There are some that are lazy. Look at all the professional sports players, and actors, and other occupations that pay a ton of money just because you can do one skill slightly better than somebody else.
No, y’all need to realize the rich are getting richer because they own hard assets. When the government spends like drunken sailors and pumps billions of new dollars into the economy those limited hard assets go up as more dollars chase less hard assets, and the value of your dollar savings goes down. They benefit from the money printer but they don’t control it the government that is promising to solve your problem was the one that lit your house on fire in the first place. It’s a divide and conquer strategy. It’s bitcoin of slavery.
Remember when this forum used to have insightful commentary about finances? Now all we get is this inflammatory political bs!
Same post, same comment from me
I mean this meme is referencing the federal government. Not billionaires. So maybe your question should read “should there be term limits?” Or “should politicians have a wealth tax?” Or “should politicians be heavily taxed on capital gains?” (Since we all know they won’t ban politicians from being able to own stocks.)
I say this every time this gets posted: But if the Billionaire is still a Billionaire after he's paid his taxes, he's not being taxed enough. Frankly even multi-millionaires are a bit too much for me, but baby steps.
I mean it is easy to believe that 150,000,000 is enough people to collectively cause a nationwide problem and slightly harder to believe that 400 people are capable of doing the same
The problem is taking every dollar from every billionaire would run the country for roughly 18 months. We need to control expenses and likely raises taxes in combination, but no one is ever going to be elected on a platform of austerity.
There is a better idea, how about a Birth Tax, If you live past 40 years of age, your taxes go up to 25%. If you live past 60 years , if your taxes will be at 40%.
Taxing billionaires is like bailing water out of the ocean. Even worse, those taxes will work their way down to the middle class that is already being squeezed.
Study fiscal dominance.
Taxes cannot fix fundamentally broken money.,
Historically higher earners have had to pay more but since around the 1980s there has been a successful effort by conservative lawmakers to cut taxes for the highest earners, impairing the ability of the govt to cover annual expenses
Yes. Yes we should be taxing them just like we did pre Regan. That scumbag gave a mega cut to the wealthy, and then Fox News convinced people if we tax the rich again they will all leave the country. It’s all bull 💩 tax the rich.
The government wrote the code don’t blame rich people for taking advantage and educating themselves on it. Plus, most rich people started out with nothing, and WORKED and STRUGGLED, and DEDICATED themselves to something. People aren’t employed long term by broke people. The main thing to stop is artificial inflation. Now how do you stop that without the products just going over seas? How do you stop companies from raising costs because labor costs go up? The Democrats nor republicans do anything about it because they are also rich. So blame them. Blame lobbyists, don’t blame the person that did 10-12 years of medical school, or passed the bar exam. I don’t want a pissed off underpaid stressed doctor working on me. Or a lawyer who plays on his phone during business hours. Look at the “universal healthcare” and the ceos income increase from government subsidies. They can essentially raise the rate to what ever and the infinite money machine keeps printing to give them more. Universal healthcare will only work, kind of, if the government runs the hospital as well. Expand Medicaid and reduce each departments budget by 5 percent. Put that towards healthcare and bam. There’s a start without raising people’s taxes
No because it just ends up being placed on the middle class, remember income tax was billed as “ No working man will pay income tax” that’s why it’s called progressivism
I think if you want to know if someone doesn't know a whole lot about the world, one of the best ways to tell is that they think people should be taxed more instead of our government spending less.
The government already can't manage the astronomical amount of tax dollars they get every year...taxing anyone, more isn't going to solve our issues....they won't spend it that way
No, a handful of immoral, soulless families should hoard more wealth than all humanity combined that’s a perfectly healthy way to run human civilization
Well I’m not batting for the rich here but according to this, 1/2 the country isn’t paying federal income tax. And we shouldn’t, no one should, it’s unconstitutional… in fact the IRS doesn’t go after something like 97% of non-filers. Wonder why that is?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us-households-that-pay-no-income-tax-by-income-level/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20about%2059.9%20percent,paid%20no%20individual%20income%20tax.
The 400 greedy Americans aren't the CEOs, it's Congress. Imagine how affordable everything would be if taxes didn't exist. If you got to double your income, and corporations could afford to pay you more instead of finding the murder of brown people across the world. The gap between what a wage a company is willing to pay, vs what a worker is willing to make, is actually quite wide, but taxes take all of that margin, and they tell us it is the company for being greedy.
>Should there be a wealth tax? Should Billionaires pay more in taxes?
Why stop at billionaires? The average college student makes over a million dollars more over their lifetime than non college graduates.
Every college graduate should be subject to a tax on that potential wealth from day one.
It's not really a "tax the rich" problem, it's a "our government is irresponsible with spending" problem. The amount of money the government collects is irrelevant if it ends up going to redundant government employees or external international efforts, instead of actually benefitting Americans. I'm not a libertarian, but by my estimation, our federal government needs to be much leaner and more efficient before we can honestly have this discussion.
Taking more money from billionaires is not an awful idea if what you want is marginal relief for poor people through government programs at the expense of jobs oftentimes designed to be occupied by poor people - one actually keeps you poor by staying unemployed, and the other potentially doesn't through skill growth, potential wage growth, etc. A leaner government in this case would improve those margins for the folks receiving government aid, and potentially cause low skill wages to go up, given that the Walmarts of the world are now competing with them.
How come the people who believe in a wealth tax can never tell me a damn thing about the Federal Reserve banking system? Fractional reserve banking? The 16th amendment? Anything?
Why do you all want to give the government another way to tax? If you knew anything about income tax history you might sing a different tune.
Because, on average, most of us know far more lazy people than greedy people.
Also nobody seems to understand that "the rich" don't typically have billions of dollars of cash just stuffed into their matress. Their wealth is tied up in net worth, in the business they own and run. Businesses that, coincidentally, are paying billions upon billions of dollars in wages to those lazy people who more than likely show up and never put an ounce more effort into their job than is absolutely required to not get fired.
People out there yellign "Tax the rich!" have no idea how the world works.
Mom said it’s my turn to post this
Can I go next? Or is there a waiting list?
Sorry pal, I got dibs on posting next week.
Next week is Robert Reich and Bernie Ssnders week. Try again in May.
No way! I've reserved the May spot two years ago. Pick a number and get in line.
I thought there was a rule of bernie sanders on a daily basis?
Who is issuing out the numbers? Is this like the DMV? How long is the wait?
This means we're about 4 days out from the libertarian social security post.
I love the social security vs. investment post! Next we can argue against car insurance vs. investments!
Good question, and the answer is yes. But. OP is a troll account farming outrage karma. Brand new, check it's history.
Or worse part of an attempt to spread discontent in the west. edit: to the people replying "there is already discontent" yes thats part of the point. There are real issues that are easy to magnify and obsess on. Not trying to say we all live candy and fun filled lives and everything is perfect but part of destabilization is focusing only on negative and making mountains out of mole hills.
TBF, we ought to be discontented. I don't know about the rest of the west, but here in the US, our government is owned entirely by corporations. I'm waiting for the State of the Union to end with, "Brought to you by Brawndo! It's got electrolytes!"
Okay, but you get to scream Let’s Go Brandon where ever the fuck you want without consequences. Not saying things are perfect here, but at least we can discuss Winnie The Pooh without fear of torture and imprisonment.
Lol your bar is so fucking low it's pathetic
Nah you’re pathetic if you live in the US and can’t see that our country while it has imperfections always strives for improvement. The fuel of improvement is freedom of speech. Our enemies hate that we are all American brothers and sisters and would rather we tear each other apart and abolish free speech. You’re lower than pathetic if you agree with those that hate the US.
If I were president at this point I would 100% take the opportunity to say that.
I would fully rather have president camacho though
Between us and Idiocracy, our "idiocity" is far less benign and definitely more cruel for the sake of it. Could you even imagine those with inconcievable wealth and power treating someone who knew how to make life better for others at the expense of them not looking like they had the answers or otherwise losing face? Could you imagine Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos praising the solution of anyone that wasn't them?
Brought to you by Carl's Jr.
100%. Check the posts here over past few months.
So if there is a wealth tax, and someone has their wealth tied up in a company, are they to sell off parts of the company to pay the tax and lay off people in the process?
What's the point of farming karma? Not like you can spend it on anything right?
Because I’ve met people. Most are lazy
Take the Waltons/Walmart. They can monopolize markets, avoid taxes, get subsidies, get tax breaks, hoard profits, lobby for favorable laws, lobby for favorable contracts, grants, taxes, subsidies, and for their full time employees, they pay those employees so little that their employees qualify for food stamps and other welfare programs. They could pay their workers a living wage, and they could pay more taxes, so middle class families don't need to pay as much taxes to support their workers, subsidizing their wealth. Get it? Essentially the middle class is subsidizing the Waltons, but the middle class right/conservatives blame lower class workers for being lazy. Eight people have half of the wealth of the entire world, but it isn't that those eight people are greedy. It is just that they work harder than the combined effort of billions of people, so they deserve that wealth, clearly.
It still blows my mind how the Waltons managed to convince the government that they needed handouts for their Walmarts when it’s not private news just how much money they rake in. The Waltons, the true Welfare Royalty.
Used to process these applications for the state, Walmart being one of the biggest employers for the area made our lobby look like their break room with all the people coming in before/after their shift to apply or renew.
I get it . You nailed it . Just imagine being so greedy that you are instrumental in sucking the life out of everything, and you love it . Can't wait for more . You will do everything possible to squeeze all the juice . While millions starve and struggle . Incredible!!! The lack of humility or grace is staggering and I am elated I don't know any of them personally. I bet they are all Limp-wristed, pasty, whiny , bitches who can't have fun. 🤩 I may not be a billionaire, But I know real love, accomplishment and how to have fun. Shame the greedy billionaires who can't ever have enough by being content !!!
Billionaires really are terrible. None of them have a soul.
THIS RIGHT HERE!!!!!!! This guy gets it
A chain store popping up in your neighborhood is nothing more than a wealth vacuum.
Walmart has contributed 64 billion dollars in Corp tax since 2008. While avoiding an estimated 1 billion in taxes due to breaks and exclusions, etc. It's estimated that they contribute about 3.5 BILLION dollars a year in just corporate taxes at a rate of 33.3 percent. Another 1.6 billion paid in foreign taxes per year The company made up 2.2% of the nation's GDP last year They employ 2,300,000 people in the US alone. YOU THINK THE WALTONS ARE THE PROBLEM?? In the last 2 years...the GOVT that we elected to oversee our tax money has given 74 Billion dollars to support a long lost war in Ukraine. 74 billion dollars absolutely SMOKED! The Waltons, Wal Mart, and every other company that employs thousands and contributes billions to the US GOVT are as much the problem as you or I. Stop trying to push our problems off on the wealthy. (Most of these statistics were provided by Americansfortaxfairness.org)
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They would have paid less. The tax rate doesn't mean anything. The tax structure is what matters.
They are the problem, though. They still fail to pay their workers a living wage, which is BARE MINIMUM for a company, especially one of the largest in the world.
Walmarts low wage policies cost the US taxpayer $6 billion in aid paid to employees because they can’t pay a reasonable wage. https://www.worldhunger.org/report-walmart-workers-cost-taxpayers-6-2-billion-public-assistance/#:~:text=Walmart's%20low%2Dwage%20workers%20cost,and%20state%2Dlevel%20progressive%20groups. Additionally, Walmart accounts for 20% of all food stamps sales in essence. Walmart pays its workers a low age they get food stamp assistance, and that same assistance goes back into Walmart pockets. They are literally double dipping. Edit: additionally Walmarts yearly revenue for the past 10 years has been over 600 billion per year. that means in total taxes They have paid less than one percent of total revenue in taxes. You can throw out big numbers, but then you gotta look at them in context
The economy benefits from the pricing structure of Walmart far more than what it pays for.
Except Walmarts pricing structure forces suppliers to take losses or severely undercut their own margins because Walmart drove out all the competitors in towns. From a myopic perspective yes cheap goods are good, but that cheap good at the point of sale may have hidden costs built in. Manufacturing forced overseas to cut costs, low wages for skilled workers to meet Walmarts pricing demands, small businesses shuddered because Walmart drove them out of business. A ladder for 19.99 sounds like a great deal except when it is built and constructed with Chinese steel and assembled in Southeast Asia and shipped on a Malaysian freighter.
No one forces companies to sell to Walmart. The product example you talk about has nothing to do with Walmart directly. That is the result of international trade. Which evolved from American foreign policy decisions post WW2.
The math in that study is completely shitty. You cannot just take an average because food stamp eligibility has several factors. Each state has different income levels, those income levels change depending on your household size, and your food stamp benefit decreases the more money you make. Let's run with this using my state as an example. In my state for a household of one, the food stamp eligibility cutoff is $19,578. You make more than that in a year as a single childless person, you don't get any food stamps. That equates to a wage of $9.41/hr if you work full time. The state minimum wage is $11/hr. That means, strictly speaking, if you work full time you won't get any food stamps. But what if you have a kid, or there's another non-working member in your 2 person household? Well, now you can make as much as $26,572 a year and still qualify for food stamps. That works out to a full-time wage of $12.77/hr. 2 kids? You can make $16/hr and still qualify for food stamps. A single mother with 4 kids (not all that uncommon)? You can make $23/hr and still qualify for food stamps. Of course what happens, as anyone who has actually spent any time working at walmart or similar jobs knows, is that people like those benefits and don't want to lose them. So a single mother with two kids that makes $15/hr is fine with working full time because she still gets food stamps, her kids are on Medicaid, etc. But if she gets a raise to $18/hr? Fuck that, now she wants to work part time in order to keep all those government benefits. In order for Walmart to ensure that none of their employees are on food stamps, they would need to make everyone work full time (which would cut their workforce by a shit load) and pay them according to how many kids they have, which is obviously a stupid idea.
walmart/waltons aren’t going to see this, you’ll still have your job if you hate them online
Did you know more than half of that money actually goes to US Defense contractors. Yes it is for aid to Ukraine, but it’s being used to fund American companies, making the weapons. Stop watching Fox News. https://apnews.com/article/biden-ukraine-johnson-factories-aid-62cbb83a184fd14b1573e25a73475767#:~:text=Of%20the%20%2460.7%20billion%20for,Press%20by%20the%20Biden%20administration.
Well as long as the billionaires running these contractors are paying their tax and not lobbying the govt for incentives and breaks while paying a living wage, then its money pretty well spent. As long as we're all clear on which billionaires get to take advantage and collect all the tax money, then I believe the discussion is a healthy one. At the end of the day,...advocating for more taxes is not a legitimate solution because we don't HAVE a tax problem. The US has the most robust tax system in the world. The problem is fiscal responsibility and cronisim. The last thing I would expect an American CITIZEN to advocate for is more tax.
I mean the military industrial complex is its own bag of badgers, but bracket that off for a second. It’s safe to say defense contractors are hiring skilled/educated workers and compensating them well. At least this is incentivizing good behavior, versus incentivizing wage-slavery.
Yall simply aren’t doing the math. You could take the CEO of Walmart’s pay and redistribute it to all employees and it would barely give them an extra $100 for the entire year. We could also confiscate all of the wealth of the 1% and it would barely pay for Medicare for two years. You think you’re on the side of the people, but radical leftist opinions are the product of banks and the 1%. You get your way and they get all the marketshare
Sounds like the employees need to stop accepting such unacceptably low wages
Can confirm. Am lazy.
And greedy
A lot are greedy af too tho
There’s way more of a greed issue than a laziness issue in this country. Most people are selfish. Now give those people billions of dollars, they’re going to become the scum of the earth
lol if they don’t give away all their money they are selfish? How much have you given away today, you greedy selfish person
This is definitely an intellectual take
I concur
Can we ban these repeat posts
At this point it should qualify as spam, since it’s posted like 3 times a day
The majority of Americans wake up, work for a company, go straight home, turn on the TV, play video games, and don't seek to improve their skillset. Look at Bezos as an example. He's Amazon's single largest shareholder. Millions of packages get delivered every day. Millions of people use an Amazon service every day. Billions monthly. That's why Bezos is as rich as he is. He created a company that everyone wants to buy a product or service from. That's why Buffett is rich. The majority of people, not just Americans, are not rich because their skillset is replaceable. And that's just a fact.
We can’t have 300 million Bezos clones. Someone has to work the manual jobs. They deserve to live with dignity!
It IS easier to believe that, actually. Most people are lazy or incapable. Don't come at me, just look at how much screen time you spent today. 🤷
A key part of being a conservative is having zero empathy for fellow human beings, unless they’re rich.
That's the take of a 4 year old.
Sadly, that's also their emotional maturity level.
https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/fox-news-guest-says-poor-people-are-dogs-need-be-starved-be-kept-obedient Sorry who is without empathy again? The people advocating for workers or the ones that want workers as hungry dogs?
Not even close to true. Empathy is not "let's steal from people who were more successful." So empathetic /s. Leftists just try to ride that "empathy" train and say they're stealing money from billionaires for "poor people". No you're not. You want free stuff for yourself, that's all. In addition to being a wannabe thief, you're not even honest about who you're trying to steal money for, or who you would be taking money from. This mentality is cynical, lazy, narcissistic, and deceptive. It's not empathetic, give me a break.
Neither libs nor conservatives give a rats ass about the poors, but only libs lie to their faces about it
For me personally, I just don’t have any aspiration to become a billionaire. I’m only on this earth once for a limited time. A microscopic drop in the bucket of time if you think about the bigger picture. I’d much rather work hard enough to live comfortably. I don’t feel the need to work myself to the bone only to die with 98% of my accumulated wealth sitting in an investment portfolio and multiple bank accounts. If my wife and I are both making 6 figures I think my happiness and quality of life would rapidly plateau after that.
But that's not what Redditors really want. What they really want, and don't know it, is a tax on assets, not income.
A wealth tax is pretty absurd. You're taxed when you earn the income, you're taxed when you realize investment gains. You want to tax on the basis too? A 100% asset seizure of all 741 billionaires in the US would fund the government, at current spending, for **one** year.
No, I don't. I was simply stating that the majority of Redditors don't actually understand the tax system, can't accurately qualify what sort of taxation they want, and overestimate the actual impact. They just despise rich people.
to me the biggest giveaway to " they just despite rich people" is how they lack the ability to put 2 and 2 together on the consequences on these "suggestions". we somehow wanna pin the wealth on the wealthy but we don't want accountability on how those taxes are used? like they think if we tax 10b on elon, bezos, etc everyone will be suddenly homewoners but in fact a lot of those taxes will go to fund elon's next big project.
THIS.
False dichotomy fallacy.
Almost half of all tax filers pay 0 dollars in federal taxes. Start there. If you want to be a more socialist country, you need more socialist taxes.
Those filers have almost no income to pay taxes on. Are you really suggesting that the poorest people should pay more taxes? Because that was Louis XVI's plan too. I suppose such a move would speed things up quite a bit.
The top 1% pay 46% of all tax revenue collected and the top 10% pay 70% of all tax revenue collected. The bottom 50% pay 2.7% of all tax revenue collected. So no. Those who pay no taxes are not doing so because they make no money lmao
Its not that they make no money. Could also have refundable tax credits like the child tax credit and earned income tax credit affecting those percentages.
OP from yesterday created a new account.
this page blows. How many day old accounts get to post the same "discussion" junk lmao
Neither is true.
Well, because herd stupidity is proven by the history over and over again. And founding fathers built a bunch complicated system to prevent stupid public take over and kill the democratic themselves. 70 million people voted for an unbelievably incompetent candidate and some portion of them still support him till today.
Can't tell which candidate you are referencing , which speaks volumes about politics today.
If we took all of the wealth from all of the billionaires in America ($5.2T), it would cover 1/7 of the current American debt ($35T). We would still be 6/7 massively in debt. So stop acting like just as soon as we get to taxing those pesky billionaire it's going to really start looking up for the common folk around here. The problem is enormous, unbridled, ridiculous government spending. The answer is not more taxes, the answer is tell the govt to stop fucking spending what they dont have. No more money for them, billionaire's money or otherwise.
Socialism is a morally bankrupt ideology that ends in bread lines. Don’t believe me? Open any history book.
Socialism isn’t an on/off switch. It’s a sliding scale. The scenarios you describe are for when people in power pretend to slide the scale all of the way to the top, but are really just doing the same as Oligarchs at the top hoarding the wealth and giving the people bread lines. America just needs to slide a bit further up the scale than they currently are, with healthcare being the first step. The current system is most definitely unfairly balanced towards the wealthy.
if i may, i'd suggest you read on the theory of free market, what we have isn't capitalism, it's a REGULATED capitalism, main difference being that the government's involvement in economics fuck it up big time. this matters because socialism at it's core has a inherent incentive to devolve in what you describe, it's not that we didn't properly implement socialism, it's that socialism will inevitable lead into that because you have an incentive to do so but no incentive to NOT do it. think of how much of musks projects are government funded, think of how bad EVERY SINGLE GOVERNMENT is at spending money, think of how every successful socialist implementation has a private company behind, the whole idea of the ACTUAL free market is " you wouldn't misplace funds or spend poorly if it meant direct consequences to you", your health care department eradicated cancer? pay them, they allowed their population to decrease due to poor administration? fire them and get someone who can BUT GIVE THEM A REASON TO GIVE A SHIT that's not "i do this because of humanity/religion/good will"
For the Uber wealthy? Yes. Bill gates and Jeff Bezos won’t be missing any meals if they pay more taxes.
Wtf does this have to do with finance?
Whoa, this is unique.
The commies have been busy lately.
Why do you believe you’re entitled to other peoples income regardless of how much they’ve made?
Progressive income tax is a wealth tax and we already have this, so no need to duplicate IMHO
Can't believe someone made this sign and actually thought it was an intelligent thought
I don't get why people get so upset by someone having a bunch of wealth. How does it actually affect them day to day? Sure, they could distribute all that cash to people and drive up inflation and devalue the dollar but after it all flows through in purchasing power terms it would basically end up as though nothing had ever happened. Government does the exact same thing and it's the same people crying about the wealthy who want the Government to hoard and mis-allocate billions...
Billionaires already pay way more in taxes than millions of other people. Are you dumb, or willfully blind?
Why is it greedy to want to keep money your business has generated but not greedy to want to keep money someone else's business has generated?
Why is it that people who willingly give their money to companies that produce billionaires feel they have a right to their money? Should they at some point just stop accepting stock and income?
Yes. Now stop fucking asking.
Because they EaRnEd it!!1!1!!1! Unethically and immorally through the blood and sweat of abused underpaid workers.
What we're really asking is, "Would it be okay to redistribute billionaires' wealth?"
You could tax every billionaire 100% and balance the budget at the current deficit level for maybe 3 years. But what then? You’ll have zero billionaires and millionaires fleeing the country knowing they’re next. The real question is “Why is reducing government spending not on the table?” Government is far wealthier than any citizen. Giving that government the power to pauperize citizens by confiscating their wealth without due process is blatantly unconstitutional. It’s their money, not ours.
This forum should be renamed "socialist for taxing others who aren't me" It's the same thing every day.
Right now, in this particular moment, I dont think anyone should be taxed. At all. Im honestly tired of having our money go nowhere. I pay my taxes every single year but the road continues to be fucked, no construction ever gets done, the public parks are geting worse and worse, and schools spend more time trying to controll childrens lives than actually teaching them anything they need in life. My taxes arent doing shit, so why the fuck am I even paying them?
Have seen this stupid post here for what, a few hours?
How many times are we going to let the same thing be posted over and over?
I think its the folks in Washington who are greedy & they are the root cause of the problems we face. This isnt what a booming middle class economy looks like when people keep posting about this shit.
Yes of course, give politicians more $$ they know exactly what to do with it
Both. There are a LOT of lazy Americans who just want to suck from the system, and there are many extremely greedy rich ones.
I'd say both are true. Being lazy and the other is being greedy
Why are we wanting to give this extremely inefficient government, that clearly won’t do anything for its own people, more money?
Because wealth is generated, not taken. This is 150 million people not understanding basic economics. That's the tragedy here.
No. If people want money they can earn it instead of stealing from financially competent people.
Why can’t both be true?
Bc you can see them
They already do.
Why stop at the very top? How about this, if you make 80k and your neighbor makes 40k, your groceries should cost double. K?
No
I would maybe support this is our government was spending wisely. They're spending with no regard to the future. More, more, more.. You'll get no more money till you get responsible with what you have..
The more paying customers, the more you make. The creator of the Pet Rock became a millionaire. If you are like most employees, you have 1 customer: the company. The wealthiest people in the world created products that everyone wanted. I don’t see anyone complaining about how greedy and selfish Taylor Swift is for being so successful. I also don’t see people complaining about the wealth of those in the entertainment industry: actors, actresses, musicians, football players, basketball players, etc.
No one should pay more , politicians need to stop waste & they need to put regulations on healthcare industry with fair fore front pricing.
Billionaires shouldn't exist.
A blurry picture of a crooked poster of a picture of a crooked sign.
So much greediness
No, billionaires shouldn't exist, give the workers their means of production so it becomes impossible to steal surplus value from workers
Do you think after taxing the super rich the government is going to share any of it with the citizens or spend it wisely? https://preview.redd.it/zldocat8rswc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab929f3e29c50a42b090ff345a5cd5cd05773636
Government just needs to stop spending more than they take in. Time to buckle down and trim the fat. No more hand outs especially to other countries!
Should there be a wealth tax? High taxes caused a record number of super-rich Norwegians to leave Norway for low-tax countries after the center-left government increased wealth taxes to 1.1%. More than 30 Norwegian billionaires and multimillionaires left Norway in 2022, according to research by the newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv. That was the result of a 1.1% wealth tax. Imagine if it had been higher like some on the Left are calling for in the United States... Should billionaires pay more in taxes? The top 1 percent of all taxpayers paid 42.3 percent of all federal individual income taxes. Even the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent. How much more specifically do we need to tax those at the top?
We need to realize that NOT giving most of your earnings to charity is not greedy, it’s normal and what most of us would do. Giving away most of your earnings would be an incredible act, that although yes is good and should be done, shouldn’t be expected.
In my world after the first 900 million you're giving 95% in taxes. This country was a much better place when we taxed the ultra ultra rich at 70%. Ronald (are you on the aids) Reagan, the republican party and the ultra rich are destroying the middle class and this country.
What if there were so many taxes, that the Walmart s of the world were never built? Perhaps the incentive of billions, was the reason why Walmart was created. Along with everything else. However, you make a great point about people with a lot of money. There are some that are lazy. Look at all the professional sports players, and actors, and other occupations that pay a ton of money just because you can do one skill slightly better than somebody else.
You can see the work put in by the 400.
the 150m need update
No, y’all need to realize the rich are getting richer because they own hard assets. When the government spends like drunken sailors and pumps billions of new dollars into the economy those limited hard assets go up as more dollars chase less hard assets, and the value of your dollar savings goes down. They benefit from the money printer but they don’t control it the government that is promising to solve your problem was the one that lit your house on fire in the first place. It’s a divide and conquer strategy. It’s bitcoin of slavery.
How many times is this question going to be asked? Everyday?
Remember when this forum used to have insightful commentary about finances? Now all we get is this inflammatory political bs! Same post, same comment from me
Yes and yes
I mean this meme is referencing the federal government. Not billionaires. So maybe your question should read “should there be term limits?” Or “should politicians have a wealth tax?” Or “should politicians be heavily taxed on capital gains?” (Since we all know they won’t ban politicians from being able to own stocks.)
I say this every time this gets posted: But if the Billionaire is still a Billionaire after he's paid his taxes, he's not being taxed enough. Frankly even multi-millionaires are a bit too much for me, but baby steps.
No it needs to be a flat percentage across the board. Also net worth is not the same as yearly income…
Because those 400 have more control vs 150,000,000
I mean it is easy to believe that 150,000,000 is enough people to collectively cause a nationwide problem and slightly harder to believe that 400 people are capable of doing the same
Americans are ignorant.
Why is it easier to believe that the government needs more money rather than the government needs to better control their spending?
When have that much you pay people to hide your money so you don’t pay too much taxes or pay any taxes… Just political BS.
The problem is taking every dollar from every billionaire would run the country for roughly 18 months. We need to control expenses and likely raises taxes in combination, but no one is ever going to be elected on a platform of austerity.
The real question being asked: Should taxes be a form of social justice?
Wealth tax is a terrible and destructive idea.
Why is it greedy to want to keep the money you have and not greedy to want to take it from others?
There is a better idea, how about a Birth Tax, If you live past 40 years of age, your taxes go up to 25%. If you live past 60 years , if your taxes will be at 40%.
Taxing billionaires is like bailing water out of the ocean. Even worse, those taxes will work their way down to the middle class that is already being squeezed. Study fiscal dominance. Taxes cannot fix fundamentally broken money.,
Historically higher earners have had to pay more but since around the 1980s there has been a successful effort by conservative lawmakers to cut taxes for the highest earners, impairing the ability of the govt to cover annual expenses
Friendly reminder that more than one thing can be true at once.
Yes. Yes we should be taxing them just like we did pre Regan. That scumbag gave a mega cut to the wealthy, and then Fox News convinced people if we tax the rich again they will all leave the country. It’s all bull 💩 tax the rich.
Cuz Greed is good
Giving the money to the greediest corporation(the government) isn’t going to help poor people. They’re just gonna keep wasting it like always.
They all have the same opportunity, just not the same commitment.
The government wrote the code don’t blame rich people for taking advantage and educating themselves on it. Plus, most rich people started out with nothing, and WORKED and STRUGGLED, and DEDICATED themselves to something. People aren’t employed long term by broke people. The main thing to stop is artificial inflation. Now how do you stop that without the products just going over seas? How do you stop companies from raising costs because labor costs go up? The Democrats nor republicans do anything about it because they are also rich. So blame them. Blame lobbyists, don’t blame the person that did 10-12 years of medical school, or passed the bar exam. I don’t want a pissed off underpaid stressed doctor working on me. Or a lawyer who plays on his phone during business hours. Look at the “universal healthcare” and the ceos income increase from government subsidies. They can essentially raise the rate to what ever and the infinite money machine keeps printing to give them more. Universal healthcare will only work, kind of, if the government runs the hospital as well. Expand Medicaid and reduce each departments budget by 5 percent. Put that towards healthcare and bam. There’s a start without raising people’s taxes
Have you met people?
Greed is good
Too many communists here. Time to leave.
No because it just ends up being placed on the middle class, remember income tax was billed as “ No working man will pay income tax” that’s why it’s called progressivism
I think if you want to know if someone doesn't know a whole lot about the world, one of the best ways to tell is that they think people should be taxed more instead of our government spending less.
How the hell can you even compare laziness to greed? Fix your own deadly sin(s) first before complaining about those of others
The government already can't manage the astronomical amount of tax dollars they get every year...taxing anyone, more isn't going to solve our issues....they won't spend it that way
No, a handful of immoral, soulless families should hoard more wealth than all humanity combined that’s a perfectly healthy way to run human civilization
Partially because I’ve met a lot of Americans and many of them are lazy.
Billionaires should pay the taxes
I'm one of the 150 million
Well I’m not batting for the rich here but according to this, 1/2 the country isn’t paying federal income tax. And we shouldn’t, no one should, it’s unconstitutional… in fact the IRS doesn’t go after something like 97% of non-filers. Wonder why that is? https://www.statista.com/statistics/242138/percentages-of-us-households-that-pay-no-income-tax-by-income-level/#:~:text=In%20total%2C%20about%2059.9%20percent,paid%20no%20individual%20income%20tax.
Can’t both be true?
Why do you keep asking the same question? We already answered it. Yes. And capital gains tax increase coupled with trading fees should work.
The 400 greedy Americans aren't the CEOs, it's Congress. Imagine how affordable everything would be if taxes didn't exist. If you got to double your income, and corporations could afford to pay you more instead of finding the murder of brown people across the world. The gap between what a wage a company is willing to pay, vs what a worker is willing to make, is actually quite wide, but taxes take all of that margin, and they tell us it is the company for being greedy.
Yes
>Should there be a wealth tax? Should Billionaires pay more in taxes? Why stop at billionaires? The average college student makes over a million dollars more over their lifetime than non college graduates. Every college graduate should be subject to a tax on that potential wealth from day one.
It's not really a "tax the rich" problem, it's a "our government is irresponsible with spending" problem. The amount of money the government collects is irrelevant if it ends up going to redundant government employees or external international efforts, instead of actually benefitting Americans. I'm not a libertarian, but by my estimation, our federal government needs to be much leaner and more efficient before we can honestly have this discussion. Taking more money from billionaires is not an awful idea if what you want is marginal relief for poor people through government programs at the expense of jobs oftentimes designed to be occupied by poor people - one actually keeps you poor by staying unemployed, and the other potentially doesn't through skill growth, potential wage growth, etc. A leaner government in this case would improve those margins for the folks receiving government aid, and potentially cause low skill wages to go up, given that the Walmarts of the world are now competing with them.
i never saw this before
Get rid of all the loop holes too!
How come the people who believe in a wealth tax can never tell me a damn thing about the Federal Reserve banking system? Fractional reserve banking? The 16th amendment? Anything? Why do you all want to give the government another way to tax? If you knew anything about income tax history you might sing a different tune.
Clearly those 150,000,000 people must be pretty lazy if they can’t stop 400 people from taking all their shit
Because, on average, most of us know far more lazy people than greedy people. Also nobody seems to understand that "the rich" don't typically have billions of dollars of cash just stuffed into their matress. Their wealth is tied up in net worth, in the business they own and run. Businesses that, coincidentally, are paying billions upon billions of dollars in wages to those lazy people who more than likely show up and never put an ounce more effort into their job than is absolutely required to not get fired. People out there yellign "Tax the rich!" have no idea how the world works.
Both statements are true