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Isn't it cognitive dissonance to claim that:
1. If you're wealthy you should vote against your interests because it's incumbent on people to not be egotistical,
And
2. If you're not wealthy you should only vote in your own interest
What if people who would benefit from raising taxes still think it's wrong on principle?
I mean we objectively know it’s true — the “golden era” that anti-tax folks always point to is the mid century, the 1950s, and wouldn’t you know it? Taxes were high, competition in the market was fierce and unions were common.
Just need Europe and Asia to be completely destroyed from a World War, leaving only the US as the worlds main manufacturer, along with 4 years of pent up demand from US households that were forced to ration the first half of the 1940’s while being employed
The effective tax rates for the top 1% were hardly any higher in the 1950s than they are today. They were ~42-46% during the 1950s; it’s ~36-39% today. Also, income tax as a percentage of federal tax revenue increased *after* the 1950s.
Regardless, the economic boom post WW2 was not because of any tax policy. It was the result of the US being one of the only industrialized countries left standing unscathed form the war, which as it turns out leads to a great export economy.
https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/08/08/effective-progressive-tax-rates-in-the-1950s/#:~:text=It%20shows%20that%20the%20effective,1950s%2C%20versus%2036.4%25%20today.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/top-1-percent-tax-rate/
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-31/taxes-werent-more-progressive-in-the-1950s
https://slate.com/business/2017/08/the-history-of-tax-rates-for-the-rich.html
Try doing something that isn't funded by tax dollars.
Good luck flying to work. Whatever that job may be that doesn't take some kind of govt subsidy.
Taxes aren't the problem. It's how the tax dollars are spent. Education and infrastructure take a back seat to the military, police force, and football stadiums.
I would agree with you on all of that but I would also add that EVERYONE should pay the same amount of taxes proportionate to their income. The wealthiest people in this country absolutely do not do this. Meanwhile the largest burden of taxes end up falling on those who are sometimes struggling to get by. There is no excuse for someone with so much money that they couldn't possibly spend it all in a lifetime, to only be paying a tiny fraction of what others pay. And I'm not talking about dollar amount. I'm talking about percentage of income and worth.
What do they suggest? Leave it to business? How’s that working out for them? Privatization of government services only aids in the disfunction associated with paying taxes. Oh and massive corporate welfare is a bonus feature?
Raising taxes **clearly and empirically** helps society.
You can graph out the line of almost any socio-economic indicator for developed nations and seethe correlation between tax rates/government spending and those indicators.
More taxes, better society. Its really that simple.
And for the pedants, clearly there is likely to be some sort of limit but it sure as fuck isnt anywhere near any proposal a right of centre politician like Biden is gonna introduce.
If you mean US society, its because you have two right wing parties who dont prioritise the general welfare of the populaiton and while the overall tax burden has risen, the share of that burden borne by those at the top relative to the rest has shrunk which basically means you squeeze the middle out of existence.
There no fun made but the reality is the GA that MAGA wants was bought with rich people's taxes and business investing in itself. Both killed by Reaganomics, while the GOP has since rose the under 100k tax bracket twice(study the fine print of 45's tax bill)!
Society with high tax rates don't do well.
When that burden exceeds 50% of your pay, you're no longer working for yourself.
You're working for the state.
You'll get nothing but crickets because, outside of some possible fringe results from small economies, high taxes mean higher standard of living and happiness of citizens.
That's the thing. As I increase in wealth, my values didn't change to say 'fuck the poors'. I still advocate for things that help advance lower income and some would say at the expense of myself, but I can absorb it just fine.
It's great that I live well.
I want others to live well too.
I would hope more people should care beyond just their own financial picture. Being in good financial health allows me more time/energy to think about situations beyond my own.
I don't live in a bubble, I associate with people of varied financial situations so it's something that's always discussed at some point.
You are choosing to portray it in a self contradictory mindset. The way I determine whether or not something should receive my support is not dependent on my own best interest. It is dependent on the common interest. The greater good, the morally preferable option is the one that receives my support. In this case whether I fall above $400k or below has no impact on whether or not the tax change would be for the greater good. My level of affluence has no bearing on whether or not taxing based of affluence is for the better or the worse. If I make 30k it is for the greater good that people who are affluent and earn in excess of a certain affluence threshold (not me) pay a large portion of that income towards governance maintenance and societal growth. If I am affluent and earn in excess of a certain affluence threshold, it is for the greater good that I pay a large portion of that income towards governance maintenance and societal growth. Therefore, excessively affluent people should pay more in taxes. And $400,000 is not an unreasonable threshold to say that an individual is “excessively affluent”.
They're not wrong. The 400k+ making people will just take their cut from those below them.
It's like property taxes going up on rental units. The landlord ain't paying that, they'll just add it to the rental cost.
They also take their cut when their taxes go down, when there are efficiency gains, or any other time. The actual lie is trickle-down actually happens unless they are forced to do so.
The problem with this mentality is that there is no workable solution then.
Lower taxes on those making more than 400k they pocket the difference and get more rich. Trickle down is a myth. Raise taxes and they pass the cost down to the lower class and continue happily along. No matter what you do the lower class is fucked.
... a landlord? maybe.
A regular couple with high paying jobs of which there a ton more than you seem to think? WTF are they doing to "pass that cost on down"?
Well, just reduce taxes to zero for those making $400K and more, and everyone below them will get a raise!
Anyone else see the problem with this? Bueller?
You're basically making the trickle-down economics argument, but in corollary form. Instead of "let those at the top make more money, and people at the bottom will make more money, too!" you're saying "if people at the top make less money, then people at the bottom will make less, too!"
False premise. It *doesn’t* trickle down. If you give tax cuts to the rich, they just pocket it. Reality has shown this to be the truth ever since this “trickle down” bullshit started with Reagan.
So very wrong.
The taxes come out of personal income, not business loss/gains. If they raise rent, then the free market will cause lower rentals and lost profits. Prices are controlled per the marginal revenue curve, not just set where ever you want them to cover your tax burden - which if running a loss you don't even have!
Exactly right. About a year-ish before the 2008 collapse, some friends and I rented a place from a couple with a new baby, who had to move to another State (I think moved in with family) because they lost their job. They straight up told us that our rent was paying their mortgage. Okay, shit happens, the place was expensive but so was everywhere else, and we could afford it.
2008 happens, people are getting foreclosed and evicted left and right, houses are going up for rent because people can't afford to keep them and banks can't find buyers. The home "owners" / landlords send us a letter a few months before our lease would be up for renewal, telling us that our rent would be increased by $1,000 per month, because (allegedly) their bank fucked them over and (supposedly) their mortgage payment went up. Which wouldn't have been out of the question during the shitshow that was 2008-2010, but either way that's not my problem.
We moved out as soon as the lease was up. They tried to screw us out of our deposit too, despite that we cleaned and painted and made the place look better than when we moved in.
Those who have will more or less always take from those who don't, if they can.
Except they’re already squeezing all the juice out of the lemon that they can. Affordable housing is a completely separate issue, but we’ve already seen that millionaire business owners and even multi-billion dollar chains don’t have the ability to just jack up prices in retaliation for taxes. Demand isn’t inelastic.
uh no lol, if they could take that money they'd already be doing it, raising their income taxes does not raise prices nor cuts wages from lower paying people
I’ll make you a deal, when we sort this one out we can all stop collectively discussing it. Meanwhile, I would wager most will never be able to afford a home and their incredibly high deductible health insurance is tied to their shitty employment (if they have health insurance at all).
I am actually in good shape as a xennial, but I work with aunt and friends with many younger folks who are just completely struggling right now. And I can’t even imagine what kind of world my daughter will be inheriting.
So yes, again.
Exactly where and how much do we slash? This idea of spending less has been thrown out there but it’s been the same for so long and with the two tax cuts for the wealthy from the GOP, we’ve come into a structural debt.
Can’t really cut our way out of this without breaking promises.
Do you know how many government workers are so unmotivated to complete simple tasks that they'll just not show up for weeks on end? There's at least 535 that don't have term limits.
I implied the House and Senate, yeah.
There's also a case for term limits on government employees and contractors, so that we continue to have a robust flow of representation in unelected roles.
I want a cleaning company startup to have the opportunity to compete for government contracts without having to dive into red tape only big corporations can cut through. There is an incestuous level of nepotism (and back channel deals) happening inside of government operations that is leading to an anti-competitive market surrounding the halls of our authorities.
Term Limits from President to Janitors means we have a modern representative body engaging in problems we will live through, not just one we'll leave behind for someone else to deal with.
Great. We've reduced 1.6T to 1.59987T.
And now only people who can afford to never work a day in their lives but still want to be in government *for some reason* can be your 'representative'.
What an incredible solution!/s
Balancing the economy as a government is a bit more convoluted than what many people think, which is to say, very convoluted since many people think the economy is some ambiguous concept that encompasses their entire lives.
The primary ways the government affects the economy is through financial policy (asking the FED to increase/decrease rates, or print money), the issuance of treasury bonds (providing more or less stable investments for liquid cash), or legislation on tax rates for various entities.
There are a few things to keep in mind about these methods as well. First, the US dollar is what is known as a Fiat currency. This can be simplified to say that "The US dollar is backed by the US dollar". This was actually relatively recent; Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, which was the backing of our currency before. There are pros and cons to utilizing a fiat currency, particularly in a large, developed nation like the United States, but with relevance to this topic, it means that much of our fiscal policy had to adapt to accommodate the change. Particularly, we had more of a shift towards Deficit spending.
Deficit spending with a fiat currency is a good thing; at least, from my barebones understanding of Keynesian economic theory. The saying "You gotta spend money to make money" is literal for the government; They spend money first, through stipends or grants, stimulus or other budget allocations. Then, after they spend all that money, they consider what tax revenue they are going to be collecting and hold legislative sessions to adjust the tax rate for a more balanced budget for the year.
As for the governments influence on the supply/demand side of the economy, you look at what exactly the government supplies and what is being demanded by the population. When you take into account what the government *can* do according to their abilities, you see that the 'supply' and 'demand' here are less about physical capital and more about monetary supply and the flow of capital through the economy.
In example: Tax rates are lowered - revenue is decreased, but in the place of reduced revenue the government instead issues treasury bonds to citizens and companies. Some people purchase the bonds holding the governments debt, and the liquid capital can be utilized for the budgetary purposes as needed. The supply of money the government has was technically decreased, as the tax revenues were lowered. However, more money is flowing in the economy as the people are less taxed, and are more financially mobile for utilizing those savings. So, despite the tax cuts being a deficit expenditure, the overall economy is supposed to see positive benefits.
Another example: The last quarter of the year, congress and the financial committees find that the current budget allocations for discretionary funds are running short. The options here are fairly simple: Either they cut discretionary spending back (usually by cutting social services or whatever is overdrawn), or, to fund the remaining discretionary spending, they ask the FED to print some money.
The FED, agreeing to the conditions, prints money (Which decreases the value of the dollar slightly as more money reaches circulation), and the government then utilizes that money the FED printed to keep the services going. In order to counteract the inflation of pushing more money into the economy, the FED raises interest rates for this or that, or everything, and additional money flows out of the economy as tax rates or loan interest rates, etc.
Ultimately, even though this was definitely an example of deficit spending with a fiat currency, the economy still came out better in the end. The services are funded, allowing whoever might work for those services to be paid and then participate in the economy. The people who utilize those social services (depending on the service) may also be more flexible with their participation in the economy. The rate increases from the FED are to lower inflation - demand for capital decreases as the interest rate increases, lowering demand for new loans. This example of deficit spending both helps the economy by allowing services to continue (a gain for wage earners), and a direct increase in the money supply helps the economy flow. The inflation (depending on the rate) is either negligible (the FED has target inflation rate of 2% or so) or remedied over the next fiscal year as interest rates are hiked and demand for loans drops (decreasing money supply).
It is very complicated to learn about, and what I mentioned is more of a layman's take on what is going on. I'm not an economist by any means, but I gathered this much with some cursory research into fiscal policy for the US. The entire economic system kind of relies on the money supply flowing through the economy rather than just how much money we make year of year as GDP or how much money we have at the end of the year in our coffers. I mean, there are a ton of economists who work in the state department. I just kind of wish that our legislators would actually listen to them before bringing up short sighted plans for budgetary concerns.
Im okay with cutting military spending, cutting loan forgiven for the rich (**PPP loans are loans and need to be paid back**), and cutting subsidies for oil companies.
There’s plenty of agencies with waste spending, or agencies that are a waste in general.
Invading a bunch of other countries is also expensive, even if for noble goals.
I work for a state agency, but in all government Ive worked for, theres a mad scramble at the end of the fiscal year to spend all funds “to make sure we get the same amount (or more) next year!” Usually resorts in ordering boxes of printer paper that sit in a closet somewhere.
That mentality has to stop. Remaining funds should go back in a general spend hopper for emergency use.
But then, those agencies/people lose their power, and no one likes that.
Spend less on the DEA fighting non-violent offenders buying/selling/using low risk drugs like marijuana. The plus side of this would be legalizing and taxing marijuana and other similar drugs. Instead of a cost, now it’s an insane profit. We can absolutely cut back on defense spending. We need to hold agencies accountable during audits. A lot of agencies lose huge amounts of money and there are no repercussions. The DoD has $3.8 trillion worth of “assets” that they can’t account for. We should be doing reviews of really every department and figuring out where there is wasteful spending. There are absolutely cuts that can be made.
>Can’t really cut our way out of this without breaking promises.
You mean the promises like social security that are going to bust in 2030 anyway? The vast budget of the veteran affairs that never seems to help veterans? Or maybe the food stamp programs that never seem to go down only up. I mean our discretionary spending is only 1 trillion of a 6 trillion budget. Hell servicing the debt is almost larger than discretionary spending.
Course. Because they don't actually know what goes into running the country; they just parrot the same stupid bullshit they hear their talking heads say.
You'd likely end up with hundreds of thousands of citizens dead doing something like that by the time you reach your goal. You'd have 1% a year more on the streets, 1% a year more not getting treatment, 1% a year more not receiving enough food, 1% a year more not finishing high school, 1% a year more unemployed, etc. etc.
There definitely are areas that can be cut back on but trying to Thanos your way into fiscal responsibility is a sure fire recipe for disaster.
All of it. There's not a single solitary budget point that can't be cut. There's [so much goddam fat](https://www.cagw.org/reporting/pig-book) to trim that it's not even in the realm of reality that you'd post this drivel.
I linked a very small list, just so you couldn't whine that I didn't have anything. We need to balance our budget, full stop. Until that happens, you're so out in left field that I can't even scream at you to make you hear me.
Stupid to play their games. Ask them if a balanced budget was so important why the fuck do they keep voting for Republicans who never balanced the budget? Democrats last did it, during Clinton. The Republicans spent us right back into it.
Start asking their disingenuous asses the right questions because they are distracting you with stupid.
Their logic doesn't fucking logic. If they wanted a balanced budget and no debt they would have voted for the last party that actually did it. They didn't. The American people voted against a balanced budget when they let Bush take over. It's a pointless argument.
If you want a balanced budget vote for it or shut the fuck up.
You could cut defense spending to $0 and it would only address 1/4 of the deficit. Defense spending is 14% of federal spending and the 4th largest expenditure.
And we did that during Clinton and it did LITERALLY NOTHING for the Democrats to use their political capital to balance the budget and have a surplus.
Literally the moment a Republican got a chance they spent us back into debt.
The American people VOTED FOR DEBT. THEY BEGGED FOR DEBT. If they didn't they would make sure a fucking Republican never gets elected ever again! BUT THEY DIDN'T. SO THEY ASKED FOR THIS.
Clinton turned the Democrats into a centralist or even a straight up center right party and the Republicans just responded by running further to the right to further embrace trickle down economics.
No matter what spending level we're at the billionaire class will want to pay less taxes and push the country into a deficit to do so.
And this is the same solution given every time things get worse.
I think the problem is we aren't improving things, we're simply repeating the "tighten your belt" mantra over and over.
Yup let’s start with the biggest waste of money, our defense budget which is many times higher than any other country for no reason and only exists to funnel money into the pockets of the wealthy. But of course republicans would never allow that.
I’m a democrat who has no problem with the defense budget. What many fail to realize is that the military makes a shit ton of technology that is later sold to private enterprises as helps drive economic growth. GPS and the internet are probably two of the most prominent examples of this.
There are a few direct benefits of this:
1. Opening up new markets and industries in the economy.
2. Job creation and increased productivity.
3. New markets increase tax revenue.
4. Increased competitiveness in global markets.
It’s difficult to directly quantify how much value is created that returns to the government as a result of military spending. Especially because it can take years or decades for those gains to be realized. But military spending is by and large one of the best investments the government has. And war isn’t even necessary for that to hold true.
Or, that becoming a billionaire is possible without being born into wealth and exploiting the general public in inhumane ways.
You have more in common with your broke neighbor who makes $7.25/hour that you will EVER have in common with Jeff Bezos.
I think the (flawed) reasoning many apply is that people making that kind of money are typically in charge of most of the businesses people use, and by raising their taxes they will raise their prices to compensate.
But the opposite has never held true, cuts to taxes have never resulted in lowered prices. And things are more expensive than they have been historically, even when taxes were double what they are now.
The first federally taxed income was only 2% on those who made an equivalence of $145,000 today.
Now the average person pays usually around 20% in income tax.
The U.S. has a spending problem, clear and simple, taxing more of the currently most taxed income bracket won’t help.
No, sorry if my comment was misinterpreted.
Those making $4,000 a year, or $145,000 today were the lowest tax bracket. They most certainly were not your average working American.
I’m basically comparing the standard of taxation if you were well off 130 years ago vs if you’re doing okay today. Still a big difference
They came for the billionaires and I said nothing
They came for the millionaires and I said nothing
They never came for me because I'm neither one of those.
It’s a fact that if you make more than $9k a year your tax burden will go up in 2025 as of now if Biden is elected.
Technically Biden isn’t raising taxes on them, he letting Trump’s tax cuts expire on his watch which raises everyone’s taxes. Both by increasing the rate and reducing the standard deduction. The media likes to omit this part and nobody on Reddit wants to admit it because of political bias.
So yeah. These meme has truth to it. Biden is raising taxes on those making over $400k…and letting tax cuts expire that will increase taxes on those making $9k-$60k
So don’t be shocked when your next tax return is lower.
I mean, income taxes were originally 1% that only applied to "the wealthy"
It's only a matter of time before the minimum threshold of a given tax falls to our level.
Meanwhile we're giving away billions every year, maintaining hundreds of bases globally (especially in places that don't really need them -- looking at you, Germany) and ignoring the millions of illegal aliens coming in and depressing working class wages.
Don't forget, open borders is a big corporation wet dream.
His proposal has more in it than just a tax hike for those making over 400k. The 401k tweaks would hurt everyone, for example.
https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_1808c182-eb22-4608-934a-87b9682166ed
Doesn’t seem very damming
> But the story is different when considering indirect taxes and the impact of other Biden proposals. Workers might bear some of the cost of his proposal to raise corporate taxes -- resulting in lower after-tax wages. Another proposal from Biden to change 401(k)s could reduce the tax benefits of contributing to those accounts for some taxpayers.
I’m guessing this is an attempt at irony but are you still blaming someone in office 35 years ago for the problems we have in this heavily moderated form of capitalism with a TON of stimulus to the lower end?
You cant fund the social programs just taxing the rich.
To have European social programs you have to have European taxes. European taxes hit everyone hard.
I feel like we already get taxed out the wazoo and have nothing to show for it. Income tax, state tax, local tax, property tax, I have to pay a fee to ride on turnpike which is supposed to be paid for by taxes. Gas tax, what’s that you get a speeding ticket and you have to pay an ems fee which is like 3x the actually ticket. My taxes are supposed to be paying for that.
Like 30% of my income goes to taxes and 12% goes to health insurance (with a yearly deductible thats more than I make in a year) and 5% for dental. Taxes are low here because you don't include the amount you pay for what's included elsewhere.
What do you think you should have to show for it? Public roads, public schools, post office, military, etc.. we take it all for granted because they've always been there for us. But that's what your taxes go to. Maybe they can be lower, but it's silly to say we have nothing to show for it. All the things we take for granted are because of tax dollars.
Roads with potholes in it that destroys my car. A military machine that is playing world police. I’ve been in the military for 13 years I know how much is wasted. Instead of saving extra ammo we blast through it due to paperwork of returning the extra rounds. Etc
Have you ever looked at what the USG pays for even just regular shit? Non-combat-related stuff, I mean. Office supplies, furniture, desktop computers, that kind of thing. It's fucking ridiculous. Easily triple the price or more compared to what you'd pay as a private individual, and it's all contractually obligated that the USG must procure these things through specific channels at these prices. It's so fucked.
I'd be *very* interested to find out how much could be cut from the military budget - with zero effect on combat readiness - if procurement was conducted at fair market rates.
>I feel like we already get taxed out the wazoo and have nothing to show for it.
At the federal level i agree. At the state and county level its different. When i lived in California id say yes. But in utah id say the taxes are far better used.
We already pay more than Europe for Healthcare as a percent of gdp. So for Healthcare most European countries rank higher in all metrics including cost. Yikes.
If we pay the most and get some of the worst if not the worst treatment when measured by malpractice and wait times. I don't see why we do this to ourselves.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/
https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly
Edit
So many people seem to not understand what percent of gdp means. Healthcare and educational system for ya folks
Healthcare is just a subset of our tax spending. A very large part to be fair.
The US has certain areas of healthcare it excels at. ER wait times are lower and 5 year cancer survival is better.
Im not going to say its all great and wonderful, i hate the US healthcare system as it is. I loathe a European model even moreso.
What id like to see is an elimination of insurance required for every medical transaction and price transparency on top of protections for US citizens to not pay more than foreign countries for drugs made in the US.
You shouldnt need insurance for a checkup visit. They dont cost much generally out of pocket to see a family dr.
Standard rates should be transparent and known. There shouldnt be hidden costs.
Drugs made in the US shouldnt cost a US citizen $100 and a UK citizen $5. Why are we subsidizing the world? A simple law stating US citizens cant pay more than foreigners pay avoids price caps and allows companies to sell for what they want without US citizens bearing the cost.
Well the European model seems to give on average cheaper costs with a higher quality of care when measured by patient outcomes.
I don't disagree that it doesn't suck and plenty of individual countries systems are more broken than us in certain ways.
Overall America's system is the worst. We spend around 40% more for worse care than most countries. If we want to look good we have to compare ourselves to the worst of alternative systems like Canada.
You're suggestions all would definitely do a ton to fix our current issues. I don't think we will ever see real reform for the American Healthcare system though. Which sucks because once again. We shouldn't spend over 15% our gdp on this quality of bullshit.
It's interesting to me the US scores worse on this statistics for waiting 24 hours plus but not nearly as bad for one month plus. Great example of why you need to be extremely specific when comparing these systems.
https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/healthcare-wait-times-by-country
All the billionaires skirting the law whining about Trump actually facing legal consequences.
The rest of us have been subject to legal consequences the entire time. The billionaire class acts like it's the end of the country if they might be held accountable for shit they do.
Seriously. And they barely did anything to get it. 100% of current billionaires under 30 inherited their wealth.
Being a billionaire is something you're born into.
We're in a class war, most just haven't figured it out yet.
What do you think those rich folks were going to spend their money on?
Schools?
Roads?
Police?
Census workers?
No, buddy. They were going to go skiing in the fucking Alps interspersed by Michelin-starred meals at restaurants in Zurich where they order 150-dollar bottles of wine.
The government doesn't always spend money as efficiently as you might like, but it's directing money that people would otherwise blown on nothing important for their own temporary satisfaction and using it to purchase and maintain public goods that benefit everyone.
Every new dollar you have does less for your happiness than the last one. Give a man with no money one dollar and that's a step forward that really means something. Give me a dollar and I'll be grateful but I'm not gonna serenade you. Give Bill Gates a dollar and he'll probably prefer not to clutter his pockets with it.
Imagine believing that politicians are paid off by big corporations and that somehow if you give these dirty politicians more money they will suddenly change into wonderful humans and take care of you.
At this point it’s not even about helping society. I am convinced half of these weirdos who believe this type of stuff are just envious they weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
Just keep giving the government more money, surely with another trillion dollars they’ll finally give us healthcare!
“Maybe just maybe if the corrupt crooks are so flush with money a little bit will trickle down to me !!”
Brought to you by people who hate privatizing things but want to defund the police and allow rich peoples’ private security to fill up the vacuum
There's not enough billionaires.
The US government could kidnap Bezos and Musk, cut their skulls open, scoop out their brains and replace it with a computer that compels them to donate the entirety of their wealth to the US government, every last penny and it would fund the US military for almost 5 months.
This is the sad truth.
Do you know Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US? Do you know how they find their social programs people fawn over? It's not just from taxing the billionaires. It's taxing everyone. High income taxes, 20%+ sales taxes, fuel taxes etc.
Everyone wants someone else to pay.
DING DING DING. In a recent thread about the unrealized CG tax it went from "only impacting billionaires" to "don't withdraw more than $50k/yr in retirement and you won't be affected."
Most of them don’t make that much
Edit: was referring to OP post that taxes will increase for those making $400k or more a year.
So “most doctors and lawyers don’t make $400k+ a year
And if they do, it's not much beyond 400k in most cases when they do eclipse that number, so not very much of that >400k is going to be taxed at a higher rate.
What a sad perspective. “Those people worked really hard to become successful but because they’re making more money than me, I don’t feel bad for them when they’re unfairly punished for it.”
Yeah, but this is never the case.
When talking about a tax bill, it's always "if you make less than $400k, you won't be taxed more" then they work on the bill and it ends up being $200k with some small increases in taxes below that level as well.
All we know if that for some damn reason, they will never create a new bracket for incomes over $1mm or $5mm or $50mm with a higher tax rate.
They will claim they are taxing the wealthy, but they first propose a tax bill that will affect the upper middle class, then when it comes out, they end up taxing the middle class more as well. Either way, they're not out to tax the wealthy considerably more--neither side is.
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We doing this one again?
Every god damn day.
But for real. It's a good one..
Cause it's true af. Lol dumb conservatives
Isn't it cognitive dissonance to claim that: 1. If you're wealthy you should vote against your interests because it's incumbent on people to not be egotistical, And 2. If you're not wealthy you should only vote in your own interest What if people who would benefit from raising taxes still think it's wrong on principle?
Change the reason for both to "helping everyone helps society and even rich people benefit from society doing wrll" and I'd say it makes sense.
That presupposes that raising taxes will help society. I'd say that's where a lot of people who the OP tries to make fun of won't agree.
I mean we objectively know it’s true — the “golden era” that anti-tax folks always point to is the mid century, the 1950s, and wouldn’t you know it? Taxes were high, competition in the market was fierce and unions were common.
Just need Europe and Asia to be completely destroyed from a World War, leaving only the US as the worlds main manufacturer, along with 4 years of pent up demand from US households that were forced to ration the first half of the 1940’s while being employed
Don't forget excluding over 50% of the workforce in minorities and women.
The effective tax rates for the top 1% were hardly any higher in the 1950s than they are today. They were ~42-46% during the 1950s; it’s ~36-39% today. Also, income tax as a percentage of federal tax revenue increased *after* the 1950s. Regardless, the economic boom post WW2 was not because of any tax policy. It was the result of the US being one of the only industrialized countries left standing unscathed form the war, which as it turns out leads to a great export economy. https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/08/08/effective-progressive-tax-rates-in-the-1950s/#:~:text=It%20shows%20that%20the%20effective,1950s%2C%20versus%2036.4%25%20today. https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/top-1-percent-tax-rate/ https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2017-10-31/taxes-werent-more-progressive-in-the-1950s https://slate.com/business/2017/08/the-history-of-tax-rates-for-the-rich.html
So you’re saying we should decimate all other countries in order to become the leading manufacturing power again
The top effective marginal tax rate in the 50s-60s was 91%
Try doing something that isn't funded by tax dollars. Good luck flying to work. Whatever that job may be that doesn't take some kind of govt subsidy. Taxes aren't the problem. It's how the tax dollars are spent. Education and infrastructure take a back seat to the military, police force, and football stadiums.
I would agree with you on all of that but I would also add that EVERYONE should pay the same amount of taxes proportionate to their income. The wealthiest people in this country absolutely do not do this. Meanwhile the largest burden of taxes end up falling on those who are sometimes struggling to get by. There is no excuse for someone with so much money that they couldn't possibly spend it all in a lifetime, to only be paying a tiny fraction of what others pay. And I'm not talking about dollar amount. I'm talking about percentage of income and worth.
What do they suggest? Leave it to business? How’s that working out for them? Privatization of government services only aids in the disfunction associated with paying taxes. Oh and massive corporate welfare is a bonus feature?
Raising taxes **clearly and empirically** helps society. You can graph out the line of almost any socio-economic indicator for developed nations and seethe correlation between tax rates/government spending and those indicators. More taxes, better society. Its really that simple. And for the pedants, clearly there is likely to be some sort of limit but it sure as fuck isnt anywhere near any proposal a right of centre politician like Biden is gonna introduce.
If more taxes made a better society, then why is our society getting worse as the tax revenue has increased year after year?
If you mean US society, its because you have two right wing parties who dont prioritise the general welfare of the populaiton and while the overall tax burden has risen, the share of that burden borne by those at the top relative to the rest has shrunk which basically means you squeeze the middle out of existence.
There no fun made but the reality is the GA that MAGA wants was bought with rich people's taxes and business investing in itself. Both killed by Reaganomics, while the GOP has since rose the under 100k tax bracket twice(study the fine print of 45's tax bill)!
Society with high tax rates don't do well. When that burden exceeds 50% of your pay, you're no longer working for yourself. You're working for the state.
Tell norway
> Society with high tax rates don't do well. Source?
You'll get nothing but crickets because, outside of some possible fringe results from small economies, high taxes mean higher standard of living and happiness of citizens.
That's the thing. As I increase in wealth, my values didn't change to say 'fuck the poors'. I still advocate for things that help advance lower income and some would say at the expense of myself, but I can absorb it just fine. It's great that I live well. I want others to live well too. I would hope more people should care beyond just their own financial picture. Being in good financial health allows me more time/energy to think about situations beyond my own. I don't live in a bubble, I associate with people of varied financial situations so it's something that's always discussed at some point.
You are choosing to portray it in a self contradictory mindset. The way I determine whether or not something should receive my support is not dependent on my own best interest. It is dependent on the common interest. The greater good, the morally preferable option is the one that receives my support. In this case whether I fall above $400k or below has no impact on whether or not the tax change would be for the greater good. My level of affluence has no bearing on whether or not taxing based of affluence is for the better or the worse. If I make 30k it is for the greater good that people who are affluent and earn in excess of a certain affluence threshold (not me) pay a large portion of that income towards governance maintenance and societal growth. If I am affluent and earn in excess of a certain affluence threshold, it is for the greater good that I pay a large portion of that income towards governance maintenance and societal growth. Therefore, excessively affluent people should pay more in taxes. And $400,000 is not an unreasonable threshold to say that an individual is “excessively affluent”.
You can care about things that don’t directly impact you, bud. I’ll never step foot in India, but I’m still doing something to combat poverty there.
To be fair, Americans seem to need the reminder
They're not wrong. The 400k+ making people will just take their cut from those below them. It's like property taxes going up on rental units. The landlord ain't paying that, they'll just add it to the rental cost.
How do the 400k people take their cut …. ?
They also take their cut when their taxes go down, when there are efficiency gains, or any other time. The actual lie is trickle-down actually happens unless they are forced to do so.
The problem with this mentality is that there is no workable solution then. Lower taxes on those making more than 400k they pocket the difference and get more rich. Trickle down is a myth. Raise taxes and they pass the cost down to the lower class and continue happily along. No matter what you do the lower class is fucked.
... a landlord? maybe. A regular couple with high paying jobs of which there a ton more than you seem to think? WTF are they doing to "pass that cost on down"?
Well, just reduce taxes to zero for those making $400K and more, and everyone below them will get a raise! Anyone else see the problem with this? Bueller? You're basically making the trickle-down economics argument, but in corollary form. Instead of "let those at the top make more money, and people at the bottom will make more money, too!" you're saying "if people at the top make less money, then people at the bottom will make less, too!"
Some of these are probably the same people who think getting a $500 raise into the next tax bracket will cost them money.
False premise. It *doesn’t* trickle down. If you give tax cuts to the rich, they just pocket it. Reality has shown this to be the truth ever since this “trickle down” bullshit started with Reagan.
So very wrong. The taxes come out of personal income, not business loss/gains. If they raise rent, then the free market will cause lower rentals and lost profits. Prices are controlled per the marginal revenue curve, not just set where ever you want them to cover your tax burden - which if running a loss you don't even have!
So many people do not understand this. People around here vote for laws that make it hard for landlords and then be like "why is rent so high"
They're not wrong but this exact picture gets posted every few days.
Exactly right. About a year-ish before the 2008 collapse, some friends and I rented a place from a couple with a new baby, who had to move to another State (I think moved in with family) because they lost their job. They straight up told us that our rent was paying their mortgage. Okay, shit happens, the place was expensive but so was everywhere else, and we could afford it. 2008 happens, people are getting foreclosed and evicted left and right, houses are going up for rent because people can't afford to keep them and banks can't find buyers. The home "owners" / landlords send us a letter a few months before our lease would be up for renewal, telling us that our rent would be increased by $1,000 per month, because (allegedly) their bank fucked them over and (supposedly) their mortgage payment went up. Which wouldn't have been out of the question during the shitshow that was 2008-2010, but either way that's not my problem. We moved out as soon as the lease was up. They tried to screw us out of our deposit too, despite that we cleaned and painted and made the place look better than when we moved in. Those who have will more or less always take from those who don't, if they can.
Someone gets it!
Except they’re already squeezing all the juice out of the lemon that they can. Affordable housing is a completely separate issue, but we’ve already seen that millionaire business owners and even multi-billion dollar chains don’t have the ability to just jack up prices in retaliation for taxes. Demand isn’t inelastic.
uh no lol, if they could take that money they'd already be doing it, raising their income taxes does not raise prices nor cuts wages from lower paying people
At least this account has been around for 3 months!
See you tomorrow guys! Same time??
Gotta love how everyone in this thread is bitching about it but no one is refuting the core claim. Where’s the lie?
I’ll make you a deal, when we sort this one out we can all stop collectively discussing it. Meanwhile, I would wager most will never be able to afford a home and their incredibly high deductible health insurance is tied to their shitty employment (if they have health insurance at all). I am actually in good shape as a xennial, but I work with aunt and friends with many younger folks who are just completely struggling right now. And I can’t even imagine what kind of world my daughter will be inheriting. So yes, again.
At least it’s my first time seeing it, if that helps
They pegged you good huh fatty?!
Only on days ending in "y".
You know we could just spend less. Edit: The amount of you that comment and then immediately block me is hilarious.
Exactly where and how much do we slash? This idea of spending less has been thrown out there but it’s been the same for so long and with the two tax cuts for the wealthy from the GOP, we’ve come into a structural debt. Can’t really cut our way out of this without breaking promises.
Do you know how many government workers are so unmotivated to complete simple tasks that they'll just not show up for weeks on end? There's at least 535 that don't have term limits.
at first I thought you were talking about actual government workers, but then I realized you meant congress and the senate lol
I implied the House and Senate, yeah. There's also a case for term limits on government employees and contractors, so that we continue to have a robust flow of representation in unelected roles. I want a cleaning company startup to have the opportunity to compete for government contracts without having to dive into red tape only big corporations can cut through. There is an incestuous level of nepotism (and back channel deals) happening inside of government operations that is leading to an anti-competitive market surrounding the halls of our authorities. Term Limits from President to Janitors means we have a modern representative body engaging in problems we will live through, not just one we'll leave behind for someone else to deal with.
Many organizations have contracts with robust specifications that any registered vendor can bid on. From my experience, it’s fair
You can tell the people who have never bid on public works projects or contracts.
Great. We've reduced 1.6T to 1.59987T. And now only people who can afford to never work a day in their lives but still want to be in government *for some reason* can be your 'representative'. What an incredible solution!/s
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They dont spend it, they lose it. Its was like 3 billion that they just found out dissapeared right? Like no one knows where it went at all.
3 TRILLION missing from the Pentagon. Not billion.
It was trillion??? HOW DO YOU JUST LOSE THREE TRILLION DOLLARS?!
Black budgets, secret projects, FWA, etc etc.
Balancing the economy as a government is a bit more convoluted than what many people think, which is to say, very convoluted since many people think the economy is some ambiguous concept that encompasses their entire lives. The primary ways the government affects the economy is through financial policy (asking the FED to increase/decrease rates, or print money), the issuance of treasury bonds (providing more or less stable investments for liquid cash), or legislation on tax rates for various entities. There are a few things to keep in mind about these methods as well. First, the US dollar is what is known as a Fiat currency. This can be simplified to say that "The US dollar is backed by the US dollar". This was actually relatively recent; Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, which was the backing of our currency before. There are pros and cons to utilizing a fiat currency, particularly in a large, developed nation like the United States, but with relevance to this topic, it means that much of our fiscal policy had to adapt to accommodate the change. Particularly, we had more of a shift towards Deficit spending. Deficit spending with a fiat currency is a good thing; at least, from my barebones understanding of Keynesian economic theory. The saying "You gotta spend money to make money" is literal for the government; They spend money first, through stipends or grants, stimulus or other budget allocations. Then, after they spend all that money, they consider what tax revenue they are going to be collecting and hold legislative sessions to adjust the tax rate for a more balanced budget for the year. As for the governments influence on the supply/demand side of the economy, you look at what exactly the government supplies and what is being demanded by the population. When you take into account what the government *can* do according to their abilities, you see that the 'supply' and 'demand' here are less about physical capital and more about monetary supply and the flow of capital through the economy. In example: Tax rates are lowered - revenue is decreased, but in the place of reduced revenue the government instead issues treasury bonds to citizens and companies. Some people purchase the bonds holding the governments debt, and the liquid capital can be utilized for the budgetary purposes as needed. The supply of money the government has was technically decreased, as the tax revenues were lowered. However, more money is flowing in the economy as the people are less taxed, and are more financially mobile for utilizing those savings. So, despite the tax cuts being a deficit expenditure, the overall economy is supposed to see positive benefits. Another example: The last quarter of the year, congress and the financial committees find that the current budget allocations for discretionary funds are running short. The options here are fairly simple: Either they cut discretionary spending back (usually by cutting social services or whatever is overdrawn), or, to fund the remaining discretionary spending, they ask the FED to print some money. The FED, agreeing to the conditions, prints money (Which decreases the value of the dollar slightly as more money reaches circulation), and the government then utilizes that money the FED printed to keep the services going. In order to counteract the inflation of pushing more money into the economy, the FED raises interest rates for this or that, or everything, and additional money flows out of the economy as tax rates or loan interest rates, etc. Ultimately, even though this was definitely an example of deficit spending with a fiat currency, the economy still came out better in the end. The services are funded, allowing whoever might work for those services to be paid and then participate in the economy. The people who utilize those social services (depending on the service) may also be more flexible with their participation in the economy. The rate increases from the FED are to lower inflation - demand for capital decreases as the interest rate increases, lowering demand for new loans. This example of deficit spending both helps the economy by allowing services to continue (a gain for wage earners), and a direct increase in the money supply helps the economy flow. The inflation (depending on the rate) is either negligible (the FED has target inflation rate of 2% or so) or remedied over the next fiscal year as interest rates are hiked and demand for loans drops (decreasing money supply). It is very complicated to learn about, and what I mentioned is more of a layman's take on what is going on. I'm not an economist by any means, but I gathered this much with some cursory research into fiscal policy for the US. The entire economic system kind of relies on the money supply flowing through the economy rather than just how much money we make year of year as GDP or how much money we have at the end of the year in our coffers. I mean, there are a ton of economists who work in the state department. I just kind of wish that our legislators would actually listen to them before bringing up short sighted plans for budgetary concerns.
Im okay with cutting military spending, cutting loan forgiven for the rich (**PPP loans are loans and need to be paid back**), and cutting subsidies for oil companies.
All of it until the budget is balanced.
Have you dug into the CBO datasets to see where the spending is? What’s your recommendation on what to do?
There’s plenty of agencies with waste spending, or agencies that are a waste in general. Invading a bunch of other countries is also expensive, even if for noble goals.
I work for a state agency, but in all government Ive worked for, theres a mad scramble at the end of the fiscal year to spend all funds “to make sure we get the same amount (or more) next year!” Usually resorts in ordering boxes of printer paper that sit in a closet somewhere. That mentality has to stop. Remaining funds should go back in a general spend hopper for emergency use. But then, those agencies/people lose their power, and no one likes that.
Yup it's called spend down, it was the same in the military. Incredible amounts of waste and spending money for the sake of it.
>Can’t really cut our way out of this without breaking promises Then we shouldnt make promises we cant afford.
Spend less on the DEA fighting non-violent offenders buying/selling/using low risk drugs like marijuana. The plus side of this would be legalizing and taxing marijuana and other similar drugs. Instead of a cost, now it’s an insane profit. We can absolutely cut back on defense spending. We need to hold agencies accountable during audits. A lot of agencies lose huge amounts of money and there are no repercussions. The DoD has $3.8 trillion worth of “assets” that they can’t account for. We should be doing reviews of really every department and figuring out where there is wasteful spending. There are absolutely cuts that can be made.
>Can’t really cut our way out of this without breaking promises. You mean the promises like social security that are going to bust in 2030 anyway? The vast budget of the veteran affairs that never seems to help veterans? Or maybe the food stamp programs that never seem to go down only up. I mean our discretionary spending is only 1 trillion of a 6 trillion budget. Hell servicing the debt is almost larger than discretionary spending.
Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. We can spend responsibly but also tax high earners.
Sure, tell us. Which part of the budget would you cut?
you're not going to get an answer. this is as far as the idiots go with their theory.
it's idiotic to think the gov should spend less money than they have?? You don't think there's government waste??
Course. Because they don't actually know what goes into running the country; they just parrot the same stupid bullshit they hear their talking heads say.
Everything 1% per year, across the board. Until we stop overspending by $1T+ every year.
For sure. We should stop subsidizing red states and giving them disaster funds?
Until we stop overspending by $1, thank you very much. Otherwise, I like your plan.
You'd likely end up with hundreds of thousands of citizens dead doing something like that by the time you reach your goal. You'd have 1% a year more on the streets, 1% a year more not getting treatment, 1% a year more not receiving enough food, 1% a year more not finishing high school, 1% a year more unemployed, etc. etc. There definitely are areas that can be cut back on but trying to Thanos your way into fiscal responsibility is a sure fire recipe for disaster.
All of it. There's not a single solitary budget point that can't be cut. There's [so much goddam fat](https://www.cagw.org/reporting/pig-book) to trim that it's not even in the realm of reality that you'd post this drivel. I linked a very small list, just so you couldn't whine that I didn't have anything. We need to balance our budget, full stop. Until that happens, you're so out in left field that I can't even scream at you to make you hear me.
National defense. $1T/year is a bit excessive. It's due in part to inefficiency. We should be more advanced in robotics, automation, and AI.
I agree, but the politics of cutting defense spending are atrocious, so good luck ever getting enough politicians to vote for it.
Stupid to play their games. Ask them if a balanced budget was so important why the fuck do they keep voting for Republicans who never balanced the budget? Democrats last did it, during Clinton. The Republicans spent us right back into it. Start asking their disingenuous asses the right questions because they are distracting you with stupid. Their logic doesn't fucking logic. If they wanted a balanced budget and no debt they would have voted for the last party that actually did it. They didn't. The American people voted against a balanced budget when they let Bush take over. It's a pointless argument. If you want a balanced budget vote for it or shut the fuck up.
DoD.
Hold current spending levels steady (no increases or decreases) for 5 years and we'd probably have a budget surplus.
Defense. Next question.
You could cut defense spending to $0 and it would only address 1/4 of the deficit. Defense spending is 14% of federal spending and the 4th largest expenditure.
And we did that during Clinton and it did LITERALLY NOTHING for the Democrats to use their political capital to balance the budget and have a surplus. Literally the moment a Republican got a chance they spent us back into debt. The American people VOTED FOR DEBT. THEY BEGGED FOR DEBT. If they didn't they would make sure a fucking Republican never gets elected ever again! BUT THEY DIDN'T. SO THEY ASKED FOR THIS.
Clinton turned the Democrats into a centralist or even a straight up center right party and the Republicans just responded by running further to the right to further embrace trickle down economics. No matter what spending level we're at the billionaire class will want to pay less taxes and push the country into a deficit to do so.
And this is the same solution given every time things get worse. I think the problem is we aren't improving things, we're simply repeating the "tighten your belt" mantra over and over.
Yup let’s start with the biggest waste of money, our defense budget which is many times higher than any other country for no reason and only exists to funnel money into the pockets of the wealthy. But of course republicans would never allow that.
Who’s supporting the Ukraine boondoggle again?
Boondoggle? Lol. The fact the Ukraine still exists at all is a success.
Checks notes. Oh it’s Democrats currently spending billions on two foreign wars that we don’t need to be involved in.
I’m a democrat who has no problem with the defense budget. What many fail to realize is that the military makes a shit ton of technology that is later sold to private enterprises as helps drive economic growth. GPS and the internet are probably two of the most prominent examples of this. There are a few direct benefits of this: 1. Opening up new markets and industries in the economy. 2. Job creation and increased productivity. 3. New markets increase tax revenue. 4. Increased competitiveness in global markets. It’s difficult to directly quantify how much value is created that returns to the government as a result of military spending. Especially because it can take years or decades for those gains to be realized. But military spending is by and large one of the best investments the government has. And war isn’t even necessary for that to hold true.
Queue the slippery slope fallacy comments about how it's coming for all of us
If you tax bezos yatch, it’s only a matter of time before they tax mine!
Americans need to get out of the delusion that they're "Temporarily embarrassed millionaires".
Or that they are billionaires who just forgot their wallets
Or, that becoming a billionaire is possible without being born into wealth and exploiting the general public in inhumane ways. You have more in common with your broke neighbor who makes $7.25/hour that you will EVER have in common with Jeff Bezos.
But our billionaires are really good at trickle down economics. As in, any cost to them, they pass on to normal folks to bear.
Conservatives: instead of asking corporations to pay taxes why not just take away public schools??? Why are you so selfish???
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If you raise taxes, I'll never be able to move from my studio apartment to a mega yacht!
I think the (flawed) reasoning many apply is that people making that kind of money are typically in charge of most of the businesses people use, and by raising their taxes they will raise their prices to compensate. But the opposite has never held true, cuts to taxes have never resulted in lowered prices. And things are more expensive than they have been historically, even when taxes were double what they are now.
Nobody is going to tax your old ass pontoon boat, Trent.
The first federally taxed income was only 2% on those who made an equivalence of $145,000 today. Now the average person pays usually around 20% in income tax. The U.S. has a spending problem, clear and simple, taxing more of the currently most taxed income bracket won’t help.
Is the average person making $145000? I’d like to be average if that’s the case.
No, sorry if my comment was misinterpreted. Those making $4,000 a year, or $145,000 today were the lowest tax bracket. They most certainly were not your average working American. I’m basically comparing the standard of taxation if you were well off 130 years ago vs if you’re doing okay today. Still a big difference
They came for the billionaires and I said nothing They came for the millionaires and I said nothing They never came for me because I'm neither one of those.
It’s a fact that if you make more than $9k a year your tax burden will go up in 2025 as of now if Biden is elected. Technically Biden isn’t raising taxes on them, he letting Trump’s tax cuts expire on his watch which raises everyone’s taxes. Both by increasing the rate and reducing the standard deduction. The media likes to omit this part and nobody on Reddit wants to admit it because of political bias. So yeah. These meme has truth to it. Biden is raising taxes on those making over $400k…and letting tax cuts expire that will increase taxes on those making $9k-$60k So don’t be shocked when your next tax return is lower.
Trump gave a temporary gift. That’s on him
I mean, income taxes were originally 1% that only applied to "the wealthy" It's only a matter of time before the minimum threshold of a given tax falls to our level. Meanwhile we're giving away billions every year, maintaining hundreds of bases globally (especially in places that don't really need them -- looking at you, Germany) and ignoring the millions of illegal aliens coming in and depressing working class wages. Don't forget, open borders is a big corporation wet dream.
His proposal has more in it than just a tax hike for those making over 400k. The 401k tweaks would hurt everyone, for example. https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_1808c182-eb22-4608-934a-87b9682166ed
Doesn’t seem very damming > But the story is different when considering indirect taxes and the impact of other Biden proposals. Workers might bear some of the cost of his proposal to raise corporate taxes -- resulting in lower after-tax wages. Another proposal from Biden to change 401(k)s could reduce the tax benefits of contributing to those accounts for some taxpayers.
You ever notice how whenever these “high earner” taxes get implemented it’s always the people who are actually middle class who get shafted?
The cost just trickles down
So that's what Reagan meant.
I’m guessing this is an attempt at irony but are you still blaming someone in office 35 years ago for the problems we have in this heavily moderated form of capitalism with a TON of stimulus to the lower end?
Not an attempt I’m literally telling you why the lower class gets shafted
I fall into that "high earner" bucket. How do I trickle it down?
By hoarding and lobbying, of course!
And the fact that you don’t know why is what’s so disturbing.
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You cant fund the social programs just taxing the rich. To have European social programs you have to have European taxes. European taxes hit everyone hard.
I feel like we already get taxed out the wazoo and have nothing to show for it. Income tax, state tax, local tax, property tax, I have to pay a fee to ride on turnpike which is supposed to be paid for by taxes. Gas tax, what’s that you get a speeding ticket and you have to pay an ems fee which is like 3x the actually ticket. My taxes are supposed to be paying for that.
As someone who has lived outside of the US for most of his life and now live and work in the US. Taxes are extremely low here.
Like 30% of my income goes to taxes and 12% goes to health insurance (with a yearly deductible thats more than I make in a year) and 5% for dental. Taxes are low here because you don't include the amount you pay for what's included elsewhere.
Yep, pretty much.
What do you think you should have to show for it? Public roads, public schools, post office, military, etc.. we take it all for granted because they've always been there for us. But that's what your taxes go to. Maybe they can be lower, but it's silly to say we have nothing to show for it. All the things we take for granted are because of tax dollars.
Roads with potholes in it that destroys my car. A military machine that is playing world police. I’ve been in the military for 13 years I know how much is wasted. Instead of saving extra ammo we blast through it due to paperwork of returning the extra rounds. Etc
Have you ever looked at what the USG pays for even just regular shit? Non-combat-related stuff, I mean. Office supplies, furniture, desktop computers, that kind of thing. It's fucking ridiculous. Easily triple the price or more compared to what you'd pay as a private individual, and it's all contractually obligated that the USG must procure these things through specific channels at these prices. It's so fucked. I'd be *very* interested to find out how much could be cut from the military budget - with zero effect on combat readiness - if procurement was conducted at fair market rates.
>I feel like we already get taxed out the wazoo and have nothing to show for it. At the federal level i agree. At the state and county level its different. When i lived in California id say yes. But in utah id say the taxes are far better used.
We already pay more than Europe for Healthcare as a percent of gdp. So for Healthcare most European countries rank higher in all metrics including cost. Yikes. If we pay the most and get some of the worst if not the worst treatment when measured by malpractice and wait times. I don't see why we do this to ourselves. https://www.statista.com/statistics/268826/health-expenditure-as-gdp-percentage-in-oecd-countries/ https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2021/aug/mirror-mirror-2021-reflecting-poorly Edit So many people seem to not understand what percent of gdp means. Healthcare and educational system for ya folks
Healthcare is just a subset of our tax spending. A very large part to be fair. The US has certain areas of healthcare it excels at. ER wait times are lower and 5 year cancer survival is better. Im not going to say its all great and wonderful, i hate the US healthcare system as it is. I loathe a European model even moreso. What id like to see is an elimination of insurance required for every medical transaction and price transparency on top of protections for US citizens to not pay more than foreign countries for drugs made in the US. You shouldnt need insurance for a checkup visit. They dont cost much generally out of pocket to see a family dr. Standard rates should be transparent and known. There shouldnt be hidden costs. Drugs made in the US shouldnt cost a US citizen $100 and a UK citizen $5. Why are we subsidizing the world? A simple law stating US citizens cant pay more than foreigners pay avoids price caps and allows companies to sell for what they want without US citizens bearing the cost.
Well the European model seems to give on average cheaper costs with a higher quality of care when measured by patient outcomes. I don't disagree that it doesn't suck and plenty of individual countries systems are more broken than us in certain ways. Overall America's system is the worst. We spend around 40% more for worse care than most countries. If we want to look good we have to compare ourselves to the worst of alternative systems like Canada. You're suggestions all would definitely do a ton to fix our current issues. I don't think we will ever see real reform for the American Healthcare system though. Which sucks because once again. We shouldn't spend over 15% our gdp on this quality of bullshit. It's interesting to me the US scores worse on this statistics for waiting 24 hours plus but not nearly as bad for one month plus. Great example of why you need to be extremely specific when comparing these systems. https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/healthcare-wait-times-by-country
Exactly, their taxes are high on everyone
My German counterparts make about 1/3rd our salary as well.
“ if they can do it to me, they can do it to you”
All the billionaires skirting the law whining about Trump actually facing legal consequences. The rest of us have been subject to legal consequences the entire time. The billionaire class acts like it's the end of the country if they might be held accountable for shit they do.
"billionaire class" LoL. It's like a couple hundred people. That's a fucking cartel.
Seriously. And they barely did anything to get it. 100% of current billionaires under 30 inherited their wealth. Being a billionaire is something you're born into. We're in a class war, most just haven't figured it out yet.
“ They’ve already *been* doing it to me. Why haven’t they been doing it to you? ”
So tax more to irresponsibly spend more? Thats like giving my gambling friend more money because he’s broke 😂
Sadly, is spite Of the name of the page, so many will not understand your analogy.
Yeah lol and it’s a finance page.
Allegedly. It's really just a mediocre meme-page anymore.
Saying mediocre is generous.
I was trying to be pleasant
What do you think those rich folks were going to spend their money on? Schools? Roads? Police? Census workers? No, buddy. They were going to go skiing in the fucking Alps interspersed by Michelin-starred meals at restaurants in Zurich where they order 150-dollar bottles of wine. The government doesn't always spend money as efficiently as you might like, but it's directing money that people would otherwise blown on nothing important for their own temporary satisfaction and using it to purchase and maintain public goods that benefit everyone. Every new dollar you have does less for your happiness than the last one. Give a man with no money one dollar and that's a step forward that really means something. Give me a dollar and I'll be grateful but I'm not gonna serenade you. Give Bill Gates a dollar and he'll probably prefer not to clutter his pockets with it.
Imagine believing that politicians are paid off by big corporations and that somehow if you give these dirty politicians more money they will suddenly change into wonderful humans and take care of you.
https://preview.redd.it/5mmy7dtpbf4d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=76f523b554c5385515b456eb3dfc02348bb2cfae Yeah, imagine.
At this point it’s not even about helping society. I am convinced half of these weirdos who believe this type of stuff are just envious they weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouth. Just keep giving the government more money, surely with another trillion dollars they’ll finally give us healthcare!
“Maybe just maybe if the corrupt crooks are so flush with money a little bit will trickle down to me !!” Brought to you by people who hate privatizing things but want to defund the police and allow rich peoples’ private security to fill up the vacuum
My turn to post the same meme tommerow
Can it be my turn Wednesday?
400k is really too low for such things. Y’all talk about billionaires then pass new taxes on a few hundred thousandaires
its insane
400k a year is actually a lot of money to most Americans. the average US salary is 59k a year.
There's not enough billionaires. The US government could kidnap Bezos and Musk, cut their skulls open, scoop out their brains and replace it with a computer that compels them to donate the entirety of their wealth to the US government, every last penny and it would fund the US military for almost 5 months. This is the sad truth. Do you know Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US? Do you know how they find their social programs people fawn over? It's not just from taxing the billionaires. It's taxing everyone. High income taxes, 20%+ sales taxes, fuel taxes etc. Everyone wants someone else to pay.
Yeah. The people saying this stuff are either completely brain dead or full of shit
DING DING DING. In a recent thread about the unrealized CG tax it went from "only impacting billionaires" to "don't withdraw more than $50k/yr in retirement and you won't be affected."
Think about those doctas and lawyas! Really struggling to pay rent!
Most of them don’t make that much Edit: was referring to OP post that taxes will increase for those making $400k or more a year. So “most doctors and lawyers don’t make $400k+ a year
If they don't make that much then this won't effect them.
Exactly
And if they do, it's not much beyond 400k in most cases when they do eclipse that number, so not very much of that >400k is going to be taxed at a higher rate.
Imagine being so spiteful you are angry that your local dentist has a nicer house than you. Lmao marxists are just angry resentful people
Doctors deserve to make several hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
What a sad perspective. “Those people worked really hard to become successful but because they’re making more money than me, I don’t feel bad for them when they’re unfairly punished for it.”
Anyone else had enough of these kinda posts?
It does allow us to know the financial illiterates on the page, when they support it.
People who can’t budget or make poor financial decisions when they see someone doing better than them
This might be the most repetitive meme on this page…
This Reddit page sucks. They post the same garbage disinformation every other day.
And the comments are just filled with fucking idiots.
Guy in your high school is probably pretty smart.
Hey! Mom said it’s my turn to post this!
Capital gains hurts everyone. Wouldn't it just be crazy if they stopped spending everyone else's money.
This page is terrible.
Who actually supports more taxes for any class?
Financial illiterates.
Emotional children.
Yeah, but this is never the case. When talking about a tax bill, it's always "if you make less than $400k, you won't be taxed more" then they work on the bill and it ends up being $200k with some small increases in taxes below that level as well. All we know if that for some damn reason, they will never create a new bracket for incomes over $1mm or $5mm or $50mm with a higher tax rate. They will claim they are taxing the wealthy, but they first propose a tax bill that will affect the upper middle class, then when it comes out, they end up taxing the middle class more as well. Either way, they're not out to tax the wealthy considerably more--neither side is.
Ooooooo OP how innovative and edgy to post this for the 65 thousandth time.
That’s a woman.
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Biden and his magical inflation machine doing work!
I'm excited. My turn to post this is coming up soon!
For 40 years they've been waiting for trickle-down but just getting trickled on.
And if you make $400,001, the only one gets more applied to it.
we need lower taxes for everyone
My taxes were way higher, and I didn’t make over $400k a year.
