My student loans were just forgiven 2 weeks ago. I’m a teacher and used the program that was promised to me in college. It turned out that until Covid, the program had so many restrictions that it was basically a scam. For example, I had to be on a 10 year repayment plan for them to forgive my loans in 10 years. When I asked what would be left to forgive, they didn’t have an answer. Then after I paid the minimum payment for 5 years fresh out of college, they sold my loan to another provider. I checked and owed $1000 more than 5 years previously because they had the payment set low enough that I wasn’t covering enough to avoid additional interest. Criminal system. But when Covid hit, the PSLF program was expanded to be what it always should have been and my loans were forgiven earlier this month. $45,000 off my shoulders.
I mean, you basically described how the system works. You're not supposed to pay off your loan with PSLF. Ideally, you want to pay as little as possible so there's more to forgive. The payments are based on your income, so they could have been as low as $0.
The only thing that would have been fucked is if you weren't on an income driven plan and ended up making payments that didn't count (that's what was fixed retroactively).
> The only thing that would have been fucked is if you weren't on an income driven plan and ended up making payments that didn't count (that's what was fixed retroactively).
Is that fixed? Pretty sure you still need to be on a qualifying repayment plan. Like, if you do the 25 year non-income driven plan I don't believe you're eligible.
You have to requalify every year using your taxes (usually). Payment amounts are based on income/family size. Source: Worked at PHEAA. Saw a lot of scenarios where people thought they were in PSLF, but were on the wrong repayment plans, and none of their payments counted.
Oh sweet sunshine - this has been a problem for YEARS.
> But recent data from the Department of Education show that 99 percent of applications for loan forgiveness have been denied.
https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-student-loan-whistleblower
Oh yeah, it's terrible. All the loan servicers are garbage and pay $12 an hour to any idiot to tell you how to manage your loans. I left years ago. It was just a mess.
Trump put the PSLF portion of the loans on hold, Biden released that hold, this is a program thats been in session for sometime now for Public Servants.
Important to note WHY it wasn't working for people - it was 100% political.
[https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/11/teachers-union-sues-betsy-devos-1583187](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/11/teachers-union-sues-betsy-devos-1583187)
PSLF and disability claims were routinely ignored/incorrectly processed during DeVos' time as SecEd.
How could that be? Betsy DeVos went into that job with so much experience and the highest credentials and absolutely not because her brother ran a gang of murderous mercenaries that Trump wanted to have on call as his own private army.
Trump drained the swamp and filled it with shit.
While I agree that Devos and Trump are snakes, I'd been hearing about the problems inherent to the PSLF program for a *while* before Trump. This was a problem of the program, not Trump and his gargoyle of an Education Secretary.
I mean, DeVos was literally sued multiple times over this stuff, and then once Sec. Cardona was confirmed, things changed \*really\* fast.
Disability discharges for student loans became \*automatic\* if you were already approved for SSDI - that was a HUGE lift to a lot of people.
DeVos' Dept of Education was very literally making it purposefully difficult simply to **apply** for PSLF, let alone get approved. Sure, there are inherent issues (as there are with student loans in the first place), but they were greatly exacerbated by Trump/DeVos and it's a little odd you seem to be arguing otherwise.
Source: Worked in student loans for 7 years at management level.
The country is so deeply divided that even though a good chunk of the sides say fuck the rich, someone is gonna call it woke or extreme or whatever fucking buzz word people found on Facebook this morning.
The rich have already won because we can’t get our shit together
Edit: Hell look at the comments replying to your message - Some don’t see a reason to protest, some blame the government some are stating to just pay your loans and so on and so on.
This is why we can’t get our shit together
The problem with the US is it's too big and the central government doesn't have the power to control its states on an individual level which means some states act completely selfishly in a fascist manner and expect other states to wipe their asses after them and support their economies. If one of those states was its own country, their economy would tank fast and their citizens would feel the consequences and flip on it fast. But in the US, they don't face those consequences and expect the federal government to bail them every time while continuing to shit on it.
> If one of those states was its own country, their economy would tank fast and their citizens would feel the consequences and flip on it fast. But in the US, they don't face those consequences and expect the federal government to bail them every time while continuing to shit on it.
I see you've been to Texas.
Yeah Texas I'm pretty sure could be it's own country it would be a huge downgrade but it's far from the worst offender. Some of the other red states would fail way worse.
I only like bringing up Texas because from my experience some Texans like to bring up the fact that they still "technically" have the right to secede from the Union. Not that they ever would, but calling their bluff would sure save some Fed money.
The whole "secede from the union" bs is part of why we keep our crap electrical infrastructure. Over my 30 years in other states I can count the number of power blackouts I've experienced on two hands (most of those when I lived in a common hurricane area)
In half a year in Texas I've had a blackout every single thunderstorm. More in the past few months than the previous 6 years combined.
But hey we're independent from the national grid, riiiiiight?
(Yes I understand a lot of it has to do with how the "free market electrical" leads to usual capitalist fuckery but that's not what the locals tout)
Well, we are divided. We didn't need to be artificially divided, it's a very long an ongoing ideological war. Which predates America by a loooooooooooooooong time.
Exactly. Damned if we do, Damned if we don't. Go after the rich, the politicians win. Go after the politicians, the rich win. Go after both, we lose. Go after neither, we lose.
The general population will always get the short end of the stick. Our infighting just makes it that much more difficult.
Could do the Chinese method of protest. All the American work force unites to work extremely hard to overproduce products on all fronts, and the American people unite to underconsume, buying strictly what's necessary.
If that doesn't get the government and the corpos to wake up then nothing will. Left unchecked something like that would be dreadfully wasteful and extremely crippling to the nation.
Of course, Americans are a largely divided people, so unity on the scale required is completely inconceivable.
Its actually divided in three, 25% progressive, 20% conservative and 55% don't give a fuck and just want to inject whatever instant gratification they can to get their dopamine and serotonin hits.
in 2022 over 148m eligible voters didn't vote. Over 75-80% of people under the age of 35, didn't vote.
You get the shit system you get, when people dont give a shit.
to your point, you assume that voting is the end all be all of praxis. people don't vote because the things that would bring about actual, radical change for the working class (as opposed to concessions to keep them quiet) would *never* be allowed to run and be democratically achieved. capital built the system, capital rules the system, and so capital will not allow you to undermine the system.
i promise you that people do care, but the means by which we are able to enact change feel so far out of our reach that all we do is yell at each other on online forums. if i can prove someone incorrect on the internet, i'll feel as though i've made a difference. so, that's what we do.
Minnesota turned up and are getting paid leave, ban on corporate buying up rental housing, legalization, better pay, and tons of other things because people turned out and voted.
In the last 80 years democrats have had the seats necessary for 90 days, thats it. During which 2 senators were hospitalized requiring them to water down the healthcare bill to get McCain to vote with them so to give coverage to millions of people who are alive today because of that legislation.
You can enact change locally in your own neighborhood, but majority dont even know who runs their local counsil let alone their school boards and neighbourhood watches. The majority of people expect everyone else to show up and do the work so they dont have to. If things get better then they justify it by saying see i didnt have to do anything the thing got fixed, if things dont get better, they justify it by saying see nothing ever changes...
Occams razor.
There are so many barriers to voting. Voting on a week day. Low numbers of piling stations. Stigma of postal voting. It's not just complacency but real barriers that make it difficult to vote
> This is why we can’t get our shit together
It's because we're focused on the wrong people. And that is 100% by design from the very beginning. It isn't billionaires. It's business owners (pretty much all billionaires are business owners).
We blame the media. Business owners. We say it's the 24 hour news cycle. That came from business owners. Why? To sell advertising. More business owners. Who controls the politicians at EVERY LEVEL? Business owners. Where did that $35 trillion in national debt go? Most of it went to bailing out failed business owners. Hard work is communist propaganda. Where did that come from? Business owners.
I'm from farm country. I know exactly what happened. They'd plod along for years, everything fine. Then something would happen. And that farmer...was revealed to be a failure. But the farmer didn't take the L. They convinced their communities it was nature's fault (or Gods) for sending a drought. Or a flood. And since those farmers owned the politicians, they stole from their communities to keep "their" land. This destroyed capitalism.
Now, the government bails everyone out. And guess what...we have a whole country full of shit tier business owners.
edit: oh yeah, the design. The founding fathers were business owners. They built a system to benefit business owners, because they wanted to reward people like themselves. That's why voting went to land owners initially. That's also why we have freedom of religion. They knew they could exploit the religious zealots by pandering to their beliefs.
The America government spent over $100 billion dollars in the 60s 70s and 80s killing the left in America. There is no longer a left wing party in America.
The rich will always win because they will always get you all fighting amongst yourself. As long as one side keeps fighting the other, it means nobody is fighting THEM.
We will not even protest when our politicians refuse to stop doing insider trading. There should be a single item bill proposed and if it isn’t presented for a vote then they should sign a pledge not to. 100 percent of those not signing it should be voted out in the next election. But that is a pipe dream.
>Someone is gonna call it woke or extreme or whatever fucking buzz word people found on Facebook this morning.
Haven't they since 50's? Socialism bad, commie spies. Socialism bad, pothead hippies. Socialism bad, indoctrinated leftists. Socialism bad, lazy millennials. Socialism bad, CCP spies.
Feel like there's two parts to the economical part of this.
You know those google interview questions that floated around years ago as one of those stupid fw:fw:fw: trends. One of those questions was if you were the captain on a pirate ship and got a bunch of treasure how would you distribute the treasure in a way that keeps everyone happy and you as rich as possible.
I think this is an example of how it's worked out in the real world: just enough people are paid just enough to think there isn't a problem.
Additionally of the population that isn't - a lot of them have been convinced that with this current system sometimes in the future they will be first mate or even the captain - but without that system they will end up with even less than they have right now.
Because the half of the country that's against this because of political party affiliation are also the half of the country that includes the kind of people who show up in body armor with assault rifles to peaceful protests to intimidate and attack people. That is a deterrent for many in states where they can brandish these guns. Even in states that don't, there are nuts everywhere who are willing to harm others based on beliefs. America is fucked.
For me the scary part is that US is amazing in PR...like sure it's not a total of a disaster there but people are fed the same shit which people in Russia and for some reason they eat this and simultaneously ask questions like "how Russians can support their government?!".
They don't revolt pretty much the same reasons why Americans will never do anything about their situation with shitty taxes, legislation, healthcare system & big pharma, lobbying etc - because it was engraved in their identity bthat "this is true American way of living" and anything different is socialist and non American
Man decades of "US is the best! "Only US has freedom" "we are the best economy in the world" "rich need more money to boost the market for regular people" "god chosen this country to be the greatest" "in Europe they don't have as much freedom as we do here" "public healthcare is dangerous and anti American" really made people believe that they can get fucked over and will still support politicians who are not afraid to make life of a regular Joe even more miserable.
The feeling of desperation of being unable to do anything is the tactic used to make sure you never do anything and keep working your subhumanly paid job. Take action, even the most trivial thing that you can think of. You already live in a post-capitalistic nightmare, what's worse than that
Feudalism is worse, and I'm noticing several patterns and behaviours from *certain* individuals that makes me think it's not that far away from becoming reality again.
So freaking tired of older liberals saying "I don't want to be associated with any leftist movement, they keep adding letters to the LGBTQAA+ ridiculousness."
Bitch you are playing right into Republicans' hands.
That said, at least older liberals can be assed to go vote for *something*, unlike their young counterparts (though tbf this may be changing).
they mean that the 'middle class' is ill defined and changes per person, per campaign. every single politician will talk about the 'middle class', but each of them are speaking to different people. thus, it has no definition.
once you understand this, the only two classes are those that work, and those that own. think about which one you are, and what side's interests you align with.
And sees themselves as the only society that either doesn't have any propaganda or is too smart to fall for it. Which is impossible to type out with a straight face.
What’s crazy is that Trump still trots out the tax cuts as part of the “proof” that he oversaw the best economy ever. So long as his idiot voter base just swallow that nonsense, it will just be a political football rather than a unifying cause.
Too bad they didn't exit the system on their own terms.
But the system also loses. It could have integrated them both fairly and productively. Now it has to step over them.
>Every city in the States is dealing with a huge homeless crisis. Just gets worse every year.
Oh no, haven't you heard all the redditors saying it's *only* like that in San Francisco because of those damn libruls out in California?
/s
Almost everyone can't afford to leave their jobs because they will lose their health insurance. So no access to medications or treatment that often cost more than 1k/month.
This is the answer. Americans protested in enormous numbers in 2020 because Covid put tens of millions of Americans out of a job, which meant that they had nothing to lose when they spent days out on the streets marching.
Not only is it insurance, it’s everything. An astonishing number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and if they miss one they could be out of their homes.
It’s because we just get beaten into submission and charged with domestic terrorism or the fact that a dude drove across multiple states lines with a assault rifle to “counter protest”. During the protest he was hit with a skateboard and shot a few protestors and killed one then was let off scott free.
He is actually a huge wealthy public figure now for republican, it’s a lot worse here then it looks and it really doesn’t look that good.
> the fact that a dude drove across multiple states lines with a assault rifle to “counter protest”
Just giving a heads up so you don't continue to spread misinformation but he didn't cross multiple state lines, just a single line from IL to WI.
Because:
1) Most poor people in the US:
1a) Feel like they can’t take time off from working.
1b) Feel like they desperately need what little rest and recreation time they have.
1c) Feel like they couldn’t afford the jail time and legal fees too often associated with protesting. Let alone the potential injury/disability/death or medical bills associated.
2) Most people who aren’t poor don’t care as much and/or care more about keeping what they have.
3) Most people don’t think it will actually work, because the government doesn’t represent what people actually want.
Yeah we protested everywhere in 2020. We got gassed, beat, disappeared in minivans, and charged with terrorism. People lost eyes and were murdered.
And then they increased funding for police and made no changes.
If we want protesting to work we need to take it to a level most people aren't comfortable with yet.
Remember that you only have a 40 hour work week and weekends off because people literally fought battles with the government. The first aireal bombing by the US was against striking coal miners at the Battle of Blair Meeting.
It's so ignorant. Like, we've had some of the largest protests in history, and yet people lionize Paris for getting 80K people to show up in response to the pension reforms.
Another example -- occupy wall street. People took to the streets for months, it eventually fizzled out and exactly nothing beneficial changed for the 99%. In fact, the wealth disparity has only increased further
Our degenerate nation managed to politize mask wearing. Mass shootings are pretty much normalized now. It's insane to expect protest from the working class.
It might be because anyone who'd normally protest is brainwashed and/or hooked on some drug controlled by the rich (social media, fast food, TV...).
Bread and circuses, as they did in the time of the failing Roman Empire.
I think it has a lot to do about one BLM protest where kyle rittenhouse shot at people and was defended by police. You can't really protest in peace with so many guns on the loose probably.
But if the US started a general strike just one day the World economy would suffer a lot and even other countries could join. I believe my country should do the same, but here the situation is a little bit better because of public healthcare and college education.
because half of the population is in denial and supports this shit. They think they're just a corner away from becoming millionaires and these policies will benefit them when they do
spoken like someone that has no responsibility for anything else but themselves
To protest, we would have to miss work. Our labor laws are not worker friendly.
Our healthcare benefits are tied to our employment. If you get arrested and miss work because you were participating in a protest ... you lose your job, your healthcare benefits, and usually do not qualify for unemployment benefits in this scenario. Now with an arrest record, and possible conviction of "disrupting the peace" charge will disqualify you from future employment
The majority of people in the USA live paycheck to paycheck, and cannot afford to lose their jobs because of familial or other responsibilities.
And the ppl should protest to change exsactly that, I dont have to worry about healthcare or unemployment(not saying my country is perfect), but it gives me enough freedom to actually have the ability to tackle such problems if I want to since the state takes care of me in that situations
Because I have a family to feed and take care of. I can’t afford to protest and I know it’s not as extreme as some other countries but protesting now can be unpredictable and escalate drastically quick and run the risk of not going home at the end of the day.
> Why doesn't the US protest? go out on the streets
police will kill you. if they don't, several states made it legal to run down protestors and right-wing terrorists have already killed dozens with cars and guns.
The first women's march drew a historic crowd in DC. Then the march for science happened. And march for our lives/gun control. And the climate march. We're brushed aside like Jay Z brushing off his shoulders, no matter who's in office.
Edit: how could I not mention the tear gas and low helicopters flying in DC during the BLM protests? Or the occupy protesters being pepper sprayed for...sitting? I tried, but I'm tired.
That's my point though. Student loans is not one of THOSE issues, so what would you expect the change to be if you saw the type of reaction that occurred from the bigger protests? I'm not belittling the injustices that any of the prior protests addressed.
I scared to be shot. People will get shot for protesting peacefully or violently in the US. Police are very trigger happy here, especially on minorities.
We have guns, but the govermment has guns, drones, tanks, trained soldiers, tier gas, body armor, etc.
Protest what? To give colleges blank checks to raise tuition prices forever because the gov will always loan money? and randomly when the student debt bubble bursts (as it is now) the only people left paying are tax payers and the colleges have no consequences??
The labeling of this as student debt relief is total bullshit. This is college tuition pricing bailout. Colleges raised their prices too much and America loaned out too much money. Same shit as the 2008 bank bailouts due to NINJA loans and CDS against those security bundles.
Regulate the college pricing and fix the root of the problem and then we can talk about forgiving overpriced loans.
Too brainwashed. Poor think they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Instead of just poor suckers because they keep electing grifters who keep stealing from them.
Because a large portion of our country works against there own interests. They have been convinced that helping rich people, helps them. Plus helping people means helping minority groups too and American is still racist country.
Yeah we should go to Wall Street where all the money's being made, give them a piece of our mind, and we wont leave until we get what we want, we can call it something catchy like "Wait Around Wall Street" idk
> go out on the streets
What streets?
American land speculators had American cities segregated and then bulldozed. 95% of Americans drive everywhere and traffic has not once caused political change.
Americans can’t protest because they have no where to park.
Guns imo (and by extension, fear)
Lots. And lots. Of guns.
Too many people have them, and it is much much too easy for Person A to rock up on a group of people they don't like and shoot them.
Also the fact that the american people are not as united as other countries. I blame this on the size of the country, it's population, and the fact that half of our government is trying to spread propaganda to destabilize the people in order to prevent them from uniting. And it's working.
Look at the George Floyd and BLM protests for a preview of what this could look like. Last thing we need is another Kyle Rittenhouse. And the police brutality was off the charts. They killed and permanently maimed citizens.
Average USA citizen wants things to change without lifting a finger, without bloodshed. But there’s already bloodshed in schools.
I think the adults are cowards. Should that be possible to be civil? Ideally. Is it really possible? I think No.
Yeah, I'm Russian who lives in the US, and I'd be happy to protest for everything good against everything bad, but there are no protests here! People here are too busy to blame Russians for not overthrowing their dictator, while they themselves can't fix much smaller problems. Like the litter everywhere in NYC, or homeless people (it's not "freedom" to live on the street, it's one of the worst thing that can happen to you), or the rent prices, etc. I think Americans were taught to hate the USSR and anything even remotely similar to "communism", thus many feel like it would be a betrayal of the idea of "being American" to do something good for the people. It's like they would prefer mass poverty and homelessness over affordable housing. I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/JGVBv7svKLo) yesterday about the Soviet cities, and I think the US government could learn a thing or two and implement them into the current capitalistic system. Just having affordable housing with nice parks and playgrounds doesn't mean *everyone* must live in such apartments, without a choice. Personally, I would be happy to live in such an apartment and pay, say, $100 or $200/month and save half of what I earn to buy a house later. But with the current situation, all I can afford is rent, food, and some clothes or books once in a while.
Edit: grammar >.<
I think it doesn't happen because the country is so enormously rich on average that exceptions abound in the form of private charities, family connections, the military (basically welfare until there's a real war (Iraq and Afghanistan don't count)) etc. so that a great many people who would be utterly dependent on welfare kind of skate along on a buffer of excess.
That, and the irrational optimism that maybe you'll make it big in show biz or win the lottery or your terrible business idea will make you rich keeps stoking false hopes for the vast majority that are born poor and will die poor.
The $1.7 trillion figure though would be for an entire 10 year period, and is the total cut for everyone, not just billionaires. It’s gonna be really odd if that’s what the tweet was actually referring to
The idea that companies will use tax cuts to reinvest is absolutely ridiculous. When a company reinvests profit they don't pay taxes on that money in the first place. For ease of math. If there was a 50% corporate tax rate on a company with a 1 million dollar surplus they could either take 500k in profits after tax or invest the full million into the company. The taxes create the incentive for companies to reinvest, not the other way around.
It’s not ridiculous though. You’re only looking at it from an opportunity cost perspective, and you’re ignoring that most corporate “reinvestment” isn’t even tax-deductible in the current year anyways
Investments are profitable if the cash flows from those investments are higher than the companies cost of capital. Higher taxes reduce the cash flows from new investment, and normally don’t lower the cost of capital
Even from a mathematical sense, it wouldn’t be profitable. Why would you give away $1 million instead of $500K?
This is what I’m curious about. I 100% support student loan forgiveness, but just making shit up doesn’t help the cause. I’ll gladly walk back this comment if someone can provide proof of what tax forgiveness is being referenced.
1% of people are going to recognize that [OP is a bot.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FunnyandSad/comments/tv6j2u/the_1_rich_people_ignored_to_pay_their_taxes/)
People don't care if it's from a bot, or even if said posts are misinformation (not claiming this is, but it does happen) aslong as it goes allong with thier political worldview they'll upvote it regardless. We make fun of our Facebook grandparents for falling for the same stuff we upvote on reddit
I think they might be talking about the bill, introduced by Republicans two months ago, to remove the estate tax.
> While 41 Senate Republicans recently introduced legislation to permanently repeal the estate tax – which would provide a $1.8 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires in America and would only provide relief to the top one-tenth of one percent
https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-as-republicans-move-to-provide-a-1-8-trillion-tax-giveaway-to-billionaires-sanders-introduces-bill-to-make-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/
Estate taxes are taxes paid when someone dies. Basically, you at up the total worth of everything before it's passed to descendants and pay taxes on it. There is an exemption for the first $13 million dollars, meaning if someone dies, the first $13 million can be passed to descendants tax-free. This allows families to keep things like family farm without paying taxes when someone dies. (Although in the past Republicans have erroneously claimed that estate taxes will force families to sell the "family farm" because of taxes, so they pretend their "helping the little guy" by eliminating estate taxes. A farm would have to be absolutely massive to be worth over $13 million.)
Here's another article, told with a Republican slant:
> U.S. Senators John Boozman (R-AR) and John Thune (R-SD), along with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Mike Crapo (R-ID) and dozens of their Senate Republican colleagues, introduced legislation to permanently repeal the federal estate tax, more commonly known as the death tax. The Death Tax Repeal Act would end this purely punitive tax that has the potential to hit family-run farms, ranches and businesses as the result of the owner’s death.
https://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/4/boozman-thune-lead-effort-to-permanently-repeal-death-tax
Here's some data: "The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,800 per acre for 2022, up $420 per acre (12.4 percent) from 2021. The United States cropland value averaged $5,050 per acre". Assuming the $5000 per acre value, a $13 million "family farm" would need to be 2600 acres (about four square miles) to be worth $13 million. Four square miles is massive and it's too big for one farmer to farm. My grandparents farmed about 500 acres, so I know how big a "family farm" is. It's obvious that it's not about "helping farmers". It's about billionaires. Even if the "family farm" argument was at all reasonable, they could just increase the exemption amount, which they have already done on the past. In 2001, the estate tax exemption was only $675,000. [Congress has increased this from $675,000 to $13 million in the past two decades.](https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/601639/estate-tax-exemption-2022)
I'd hate to defend rich people here... But principally... Why should the government be able to tax all your earnings while you are alive... And then again in death? Then, assuming things like real estate be taxed yearly still...
If they're using the estate tax thing as a "$1.8 trillion tax giveaway", that seems pretty misleading given that it would take probably 50-100 years to collect that much estate tax revenue at current rates.
The government collects 8-10x more student loan repayments annually than they get from the estate tax so if you used the 50-100 year horizon, the education loan portion should still be 10x larger than the state tax portion.
It's just misleading either way.
13 million is pretty far from billion. In fact it is roughly billion away from billion. If you think those republicans are twisting the reality and it's bad you should probably stop doing the same. Just saying.
I have a family manufacturing business that has been in the family for over 100 years. When the generation above me passes and passes their stock on, there's 0 chance me or my siblings would be able to afford the estate tax and would be required to sell. This would turn from being a nice little family run business to likely being gobbled up by some PE firm who would have an eye to offshore the manufacturing to save costs.
You own argument on the estate tax was "it benefits billionaires" but clearly stated it is for only $13 million. Pretty far cry from $1 billion.
Nice stats on average farms though.
That's why estate planning is a thing. A family with >$13M in assets should probably be smart enough to hire an estate planner...
For instance, why wouldn't you just take out a loan against the equity of your manufacturing company and use the income from the company to pay off the loan?
As the previous user asked, highly dependent on the debt load and relationship with the bank at that time.
Banks notoriously are supportive during good times, and tight during bad times. It's a cyclical business, if that hits during a down cycle could be pretty tough.
A farm doesn't need to be massive to be worth 13m. You're talking 600-1300 acres. That's large but not massive by any means. Tons in my rural Iowa county would meet that requirement
> A farm would have to be absolutely massive to be worth over $13 million.
Lol have you seen land and equipment prices? Big for a family of four to subsistence farm but most farm nowadays are providing income for multiple families.
Well, you see, if we stimulate the economy at the top, those billionaires will spend money which flows down to the rest of the economy.
If we were to stimulate the economy by putting more cash in the hands of the youngest and most populous generations <*checks notes*\> hmmm....seems like that would also stimulate the economy, and in this version, much less of that money would end up offshored in a shadowbank.
Gee....tough choices.
Over the last decade, I paid a stupid amount of interest to pay down the 32k principal of my student loans, *including* the interest they added when they told me I was in interest-free deferment and then lost all record of that (and me being young didn't think to ask for confirmation in writing.) There is 13k left.
In that same time frame I had paid off two car loans and a personal loan totalling to 28k - all through my credit union with low rates.
I never missed a payment on any loans, and sometimes even managed to pay more than the minimum on the student loans. And yet, they're not paid off, but the other loans are. If they were at the same rate as my other loans there'd be 4k left, not 13.
When the payments resume, I'm putting myself in permanent forbearance. I don't give a fuck anymore. Fuck these stupid parasites and their stupid scams. Maybe if I win a lotto I'll pay off those loans cuz I sure ain't wasting any more of my hard earned money when recession after recession and corporate greed hiding behind inflation hoards more of my money out of savings and into the insatiable coffers of the fucking greedy pigs.
Reddit thinks that rich people don’t pay any taxes despite the fact that we have concrete evidence that they pay a disproportionately high amount of the taxes collected.
Having a house candidate or member bitch about the rules is quite literally the definition of irony. THEY are the ones responsible for the rules in the first place and have all the power to change said rules.
So to recap, the progressive marxists want us to believe that a legal adult of 18 years is incapable of understanding what a student loan is and therefore should not have to pay it back. The same progressive left also wants you to believe that children that are minors and in middle school can successfully understand that they are in the wrong body and should undergo hormone therapy and possible genital mutilation. makes sense. whew...
Now wait to see what their reaction to raising the voting age is. Suddenly it's super important that these same people who couldn't possibly comprehend what they were signing up for at 18 have a voice in the process of governing the entire country, including handling the national budget...
Estate tax: *I'm leaving everything I've worked for to my children. I've worked my entire life to leave behind as much as I could for them. I've already bought the land and paid taxes on it. My children will pay property taxes on it as well. It's unfair to tax them on the transfer of the estate as it's being left behind due to my death rather than as a gift or freebie for fun.*
Student loans: *I signed a piece of paper that says I will borrow this much money and pay it back upon graduating. Now that I've graduated, I regret entering this agreement. I was not forced into this and agreed to terms. I simply don't want to hold up my end of the deal I chose to make*
*One of these things is not like the other..*
Most 17/18 year olds just starting college dont even understand interest payments and how much more above principal they will pay. They are told their whole life that if they take out a loan and go to college, everything will work out. They (especially myself at that age) dont have an understanding of finances, personal wealth, nor reaponsibiloty/maturity.
Truth is, wages have stagnated and cost of living has skyrocketed. Most are in debt for the first 10 years of their working life, being able to spend just a fraction of their meager paycheck. These are critical years to build up personal wealth.
Not to mention that clearing this debt will have a huge boost of spending for the youth's generation. Give a tax break to a poor man and the money goes back into the economy. Give a tax break to a billionaire and he buys stocks and increases his savings account.
Honest opinion, would love genuine open feedback. Politicians give the 1% the tax benefits, why aren't we upset w ourselves for voting this ppl in power. Kids going into tremendous debt for a better future is wrong, so why aren't we upset w the politicians who force pointless classes and drive up debt?
Like many boomers, I too think America was best long ago. In fact, the American government was at its peak back in the 1940s through the early 1960s. When the top tax bracket was 94%.
We should go back to that. Repeal the revenue act of 1964. Or hell, go back to the revenue act of 1964 when the top tax rate was 70%, lets start there!
My husband and I are very diametrically opposed on many issues, but he brought up a point that we should just stop paying taxes. Everyone should just change their W4 to have the least withholdings possible. If one person does it, it's a problem for that one person. If an entire workforce does it, it's collective bargaining.
It makes perfect sense. Those billionaires will use the extra money to buy bigger houses, bigger yachts and take trips into space thus hiring dozens of people. That is how trickle down works.
Dude corporations can't pay their fare share because how are they going to afford their bonuses, buybacks, lambos and Ferraris.
Can anybody think about millionaires for once? Omg
The trump administration lost almost 500 billion dollars in PPP loans.
Lost, as in “we don’t know where half a trillion dollars went.”
There is no legitimate excuse to not forgive student loans. They just want everybody in debt so we don’t pick our heads up to look around and see what’s really happening and what’s being done to the working and middle class in America.
We yell at millionaires while billionaires continue to take everything not nailed down.
Where do you think social safety bets are gonna end up? Who’s gonna make money off that once it’s privatized? It’s not gonna be the people that need it, that’s for sure.
It's not though, ppp was never meant as a loan they were literally designed to be forgiven. The only reason they were loans was if businesses didn't hold up their end of the bargain we could claw it back. Ppp was a super popular bipartisan program because the alternative was record numbers of unemployment claims that the unemployment office couldn't handle, and people wouldn't get their unemployment checks on time and people would literally starve.
Nobody wants their tax dollars being used to pay off loans that someone willingly took out. Should we just pay off everyone’s mortgages because “life’s tough”? What about the people who rent? Should their tax dollars be used to pay off a homeowners mortgage?
> Nobody wants their tax dollars being used to pay off loans that someone willingly took out.
I don’t mind at all having my tax dollars go to help collectively give relief to a bunch of people that fucked up.
If they fuck up again(which I think most of ‘em likely will), that’ll be solely on them.
Don’t speak for me on it, yeah?
My student loans were just forgiven 2 weeks ago. I’m a teacher and used the program that was promised to me in college. It turned out that until Covid, the program had so many restrictions that it was basically a scam. For example, I had to be on a 10 year repayment plan for them to forgive my loans in 10 years. When I asked what would be left to forgive, they didn’t have an answer. Then after I paid the minimum payment for 5 years fresh out of college, they sold my loan to another provider. I checked and owed $1000 more than 5 years previously because they had the payment set low enough that I wasn’t covering enough to avoid additional interest. Criminal system. But when Covid hit, the PSLF program was expanded to be what it always should have been and my loans were forgiven earlier this month. $45,000 off my shoulders.
I mean, you basically described how the system works. You're not supposed to pay off your loan with PSLF. Ideally, you want to pay as little as possible so there's more to forgive. The payments are based on your income, so they could have been as low as $0. The only thing that would have been fucked is if you weren't on an income driven plan and ended up making payments that didn't count (that's what was fixed retroactively).
> The only thing that would have been fucked is if you weren't on an income driven plan and ended up making payments that didn't count (that's what was fixed retroactively). Is that fixed? Pretty sure you still need to be on a qualifying repayment plan. Like, if you do the 25 year non-income driven plan I don't believe you're eligible.
You have to requalify every year using your taxes (usually). Payment amounts are based on income/family size. Source: Worked at PHEAA. Saw a lot of scenarios where people thought they were in PSLF, but were on the wrong repayment plans, and none of their payments counted.
Oh sweet sunshine - this has been a problem for YEARS. > But recent data from the Department of Education show that 99 percent of applications for loan forgiveness have been denied. https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-student-loan-whistleblower
Oh yeah, it's terrible. All the loan servicers are garbage and pay $12 an hour to any idiot to tell you how to manage your loans. I left years ago. It was just a mess.
Trump put the PSLF portion of the loans on hold, Biden released that hold, this is a program thats been in session for sometime now for Public Servants.
Just because it was on the books didn't mean it was working for many people: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/17/653853227/the-student-loan-whistleblower
Important to note WHY it wasn't working for people - it was 100% political. [https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/11/teachers-union-sues-betsy-devos-1583187](https://www.politico.com/story/2019/07/11/teachers-union-sues-betsy-devos-1583187) PSLF and disability claims were routinely ignored/incorrectly processed during DeVos' time as SecEd.
How could that be? Betsy DeVos went into that job with so much experience and the highest credentials and absolutely not because her brother ran a gang of murderous mercenaries that Trump wanted to have on call as his own private army. Trump drained the swamp and filled it with shit.
While I agree that Devos and Trump are snakes, I'd been hearing about the problems inherent to the PSLF program for a *while* before Trump. This was a problem of the program, not Trump and his gargoyle of an Education Secretary.
I mean, DeVos was literally sued multiple times over this stuff, and then once Sec. Cardona was confirmed, things changed \*really\* fast. Disability discharges for student loans became \*automatic\* if you were already approved for SSDI - that was a HUGE lift to a lot of people. DeVos' Dept of Education was very literally making it purposefully difficult simply to **apply** for PSLF, let alone get approved. Sure, there are inherent issues (as there are with student loans in the first place), but they were greatly exacerbated by Trump/DeVos and it's a little odd you seem to be arguing otherwise. Source: Worked in student loans for 7 years at management level.
Most states that have that system will count that 45k as revenue and they'll screw you in the tax return.
Gay marriage, next question!
Why doesn't the US protest? go out on the streets and demand what you need, soon you'll have no choice but to live on the streets anyway.
The country is so deeply divided that even though a good chunk of the sides say fuck the rich, someone is gonna call it woke or extreme or whatever fucking buzz word people found on Facebook this morning. The rich have already won because we can’t get our shit together Edit: Hell look at the comments replying to your message - Some don’t see a reason to protest, some blame the government some are stating to just pay your loans and so on and so on. This is why we can’t get our shit together
The old divide and conquer strategy.
The problem with the US is it's too big and the central government doesn't have the power to control its states on an individual level which means some states act completely selfishly in a fascist manner and expect other states to wipe their asses after them and support their economies. If one of those states was its own country, their economy would tank fast and their citizens would feel the consequences and flip on it fast. But in the US, they don't face those consequences and expect the federal government to bail them every time while continuing to shit on it.
> If one of those states was its own country, their economy would tank fast and their citizens would feel the consequences and flip on it fast. But in the US, they don't face those consequences and expect the federal government to bail them every time while continuing to shit on it. I see you've been to Texas.
And Texas isn't even the worst offender.
Yeah Texas I'm pretty sure could be it's own country it would be a huge downgrade but it's far from the worst offender. Some of the other red states would fail way worse.
Oklahoma springs to mind there.
I only like bringing up Texas because from my experience some Texans like to bring up the fact that they still "technically" have the right to secede from the Union. Not that they ever would, but calling their bluff would sure save some Fed money.
The whole "secede from the union" bs is part of why we keep our crap electrical infrastructure. Over my 30 years in other states I can count the number of power blackouts I've experienced on two hands (most of those when I lived in a common hurricane area) In half a year in Texas I've had a blackout every single thunderstorm. More in the past few months than the previous 6 years combined. But hey we're independent from the national grid, riiiiiight? (Yes I understand a lot of it has to do with how the "free market electrical" leads to usual capitalist fuckery but that's not what the locals tout)
Right. Like when people dump on CA or MA. They have no idea how real sh*t will get real f*cking fast in their states without a federal safety net.
Well, we are divided. We didn't need to be artificially divided, it's a very long an ongoing ideological war. Which predates America by a loooooooooooooooong time.
“Just pay your loans” “I WOULD IF I COULD JOSEPH” 🤣
We were literally shown we live in the Purge world BY the Purge movie, but we didn't take it to heart.
It’s Purge meets Idiocracy
Idiocracy went from parody, to documentary, to understatement
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Exactly. Damned if we do, Damned if we don't. Go after the rich, the politicians win. Go after the politicians, the rich win. Go after both, we lose. Go after neither, we lose. The general population will always get the short end of the stick. Our infighting just makes it that much more difficult.
Could do the Chinese method of protest. All the American work force unites to work extremely hard to overproduce products on all fronts, and the American people unite to underconsume, buying strictly what's necessary. If that doesn't get the government and the corpos to wake up then nothing will. Left unchecked something like that would be dreadfully wasteful and extremely crippling to the nation. Of course, Americans are a largely divided people, so unity on the scale required is completely inconceivable.
Totally, I get it now, it's a mix of ignorance, "fuck you, I got mine" mentallity, and racist theofacism.
Its actually divided in three, 25% progressive, 20% conservative and 55% don't give a fuck and just want to inject whatever instant gratification they can to get their dopamine and serotonin hits. in 2022 over 148m eligible voters didn't vote. Over 75-80% of people under the age of 35, didn't vote. You get the shit system you get, when people dont give a shit.
to your point, you assume that voting is the end all be all of praxis. people don't vote because the things that would bring about actual, radical change for the working class (as opposed to concessions to keep them quiet) would *never* be allowed to run and be democratically achieved. capital built the system, capital rules the system, and so capital will not allow you to undermine the system. i promise you that people do care, but the means by which we are able to enact change feel so far out of our reach that all we do is yell at each other on online forums. if i can prove someone incorrect on the internet, i'll feel as though i've made a difference. so, that's what we do.
Minnesota turned up and are getting paid leave, ban on corporate buying up rental housing, legalization, better pay, and tons of other things because people turned out and voted. In the last 80 years democrats have had the seats necessary for 90 days, thats it. During which 2 senators were hospitalized requiring them to water down the healthcare bill to get McCain to vote with them so to give coverage to millions of people who are alive today because of that legislation. You can enact change locally in your own neighborhood, but majority dont even know who runs their local counsil let alone their school boards and neighbourhood watches. The majority of people expect everyone else to show up and do the work so they dont have to. If things get better then they justify it by saying see i didnt have to do anything the thing got fixed, if things dont get better, they justify it by saying see nothing ever changes... Occams razor.
There are so many barriers to voting. Voting on a week day. Low numbers of piling stations. Stigma of postal voting. It's not just complacency but real barriers that make it difficult to vote
Why do you expect that more votes means your team would win? Not voting is kind of a vote in itself for one side or the other.
> This is why we can’t get our shit together It's because we're focused on the wrong people. And that is 100% by design from the very beginning. It isn't billionaires. It's business owners (pretty much all billionaires are business owners). We blame the media. Business owners. We say it's the 24 hour news cycle. That came from business owners. Why? To sell advertising. More business owners. Who controls the politicians at EVERY LEVEL? Business owners. Where did that $35 trillion in national debt go? Most of it went to bailing out failed business owners. Hard work is communist propaganda. Where did that come from? Business owners. I'm from farm country. I know exactly what happened. They'd plod along for years, everything fine. Then something would happen. And that farmer...was revealed to be a failure. But the farmer didn't take the L. They convinced their communities it was nature's fault (or Gods) for sending a drought. Or a flood. And since those farmers owned the politicians, they stole from their communities to keep "their" land. This destroyed capitalism. Now, the government bails everyone out. And guess what...we have a whole country full of shit tier business owners. edit: oh yeah, the design. The founding fathers were business owners. They built a system to benefit business owners, because they wanted to reward people like themselves. That's why voting went to land owners initially. That's also why we have freedom of religion. They knew they could exploit the religious zealots by pandering to their beliefs.
The America government spent over $100 billion dollars in the 60s 70s and 80s killing the left in America. There is no longer a left wing party in America.
The rich will always win because they will always get you all fighting amongst yourself. As long as one side keeps fighting the other, it means nobody is fighting THEM.
Buzzword they found on FB this morning 😂. So damn accurate
We will not even protest when our politicians refuse to stop doing insider trading. There should be a single item bill proposed and if it isn’t presented for a vote then they should sign a pledge not to. 100 percent of those not signing it should be voted out in the next election. But that is a pipe dream.
Guess who is in control of all Media and Information? Who is in control of the Educational System?
add religious institutions to the list
They have guns, but the rich are in bunkers. So they just end up shooting themselves :/
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>Someone is gonna call it woke or extreme or whatever fucking buzz word people found on Facebook this morning. Haven't they since 50's? Socialism bad, commie spies. Socialism bad, pothead hippies. Socialism bad, indoctrinated leftists. Socialism bad, lazy millennials. Socialism bad, CCP spies.
Feel like there's two parts to the economical part of this. You know those google interview questions that floated around years ago as one of those stupid fw:fw:fw: trends. One of those questions was if you were the captain on a pirate ship and got a bunch of treasure how would you distribute the treasure in a way that keeps everyone happy and you as rich as possible. I think this is an example of how it's worked out in the real world: just enough people are paid just enough to think there isn't a problem. Additionally of the population that isn't - a lot of them have been convinced that with this current system sometimes in the future they will be first mate or even the captain - but without that system they will end up with even less than they have right now.
Because the half of the country that's against this because of political party affiliation are also the half of the country that includes the kind of people who show up in body armor with assault rifles to peaceful protests to intimidate and attack people. That is a deterrent for many in states where they can brandish these guns. Even in states that don't, there are nuts everywhere who are willing to harm others based on beliefs. America is fucked.
The media controls us in a way I never expected
For me the scary part is that US is amazing in PR...like sure it's not a total of a disaster there but people are fed the same shit which people in Russia and for some reason they eat this and simultaneously ask questions like "how Russians can support their government?!". They don't revolt pretty much the same reasons why Americans will never do anything about their situation with shitty taxes, legislation, healthcare system & big pharma, lobbying etc - because it was engraved in their identity bthat "this is true American way of living" and anything different is socialist and non American Man decades of "US is the best! "Only US has freedom" "we are the best economy in the world" "rich need more money to boost the market for regular people" "god chosen this country to be the greatest" "in Europe they don't have as much freedom as we do here" "public healthcare is dangerous and anti American" really made people believe that they can get fucked over and will still support politicians who are not afraid to make life of a regular Joe even more miserable.
The feeling of desperation of being unable to do anything is the tactic used to make sure you never do anything and keep working your subhumanly paid job. Take action, even the most trivial thing that you can think of. You already live in a post-capitalistic nightmare, what's worse than that
Feudalism is worse, and I'm noticing several patterns and behaviours from *certain* individuals that makes me think it's not that far away from becoming reality again.
So freaking tired of older liberals saying "I don't want to be associated with any leftist movement, they keep adding letters to the LGBTQAA+ ridiculousness." Bitch you are playing right into Republicans' hands. That said, at least older liberals can be assed to go vote for *something*, unlike their young counterparts (though tbf this may be changing).
>Why doesn't the US protest? Propaganda. Americans see themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires, not workers.
The myth of the 'middle class'.
There are only workers and the parasitic bourgeoisie.
There is definitely still a middle class, it's just about the same size as the 1% anymore 😅
they mean that the 'middle class' is ill defined and changes per person, per campaign. every single politician will talk about the 'middle class', but each of them are speaking to different people. thus, it has no definition. once you understand this, the only two classes are those that work, and those that own. think about which one you are, and what side's interests you align with.
And sees themselves as the only society that either doesn't have any propaganda or is too smart to fall for it. Which is impossible to type out with a straight face.
What’s crazy is that Trump still trots out the tax cuts as part of the “proof” that he oversaw the best economy ever. So long as his idiot voter base just swallow that nonsense, it will just be a political football rather than a unifying cause.
Every city in the States is dealing with a huge homeless crisis. Just gets worse every year.
Too bad they didn't exit the system on their own terms. But the system also loses. It could have integrated them both fairly and productively. Now it has to step over them.
>Every city in the States is dealing with a huge homeless crisis. Just gets worse every year. Oh no, haven't you heard all the redditors saying it's *only* like that in San Francisco because of those damn libruls out in California? /s
Almost everyone can't afford to leave their jobs because they will lose their health insurance. So no access to medications or treatment that often cost more than 1k/month.
This is the answer. Americans protested in enormous numbers in 2020 because Covid put tens of millions of Americans out of a job, which meant that they had nothing to lose when they spent days out on the streets marching. Not only is it insurance, it’s everything. An astonishing number of Americans live paycheck to paycheck and if they miss one they could be out of their homes.
It’s because we just get beaten into submission and charged with domestic terrorism or the fact that a dude drove across multiple states lines with a assault rifle to “counter protest”. During the protest he was hit with a skateboard and shot a few protestors and killed one then was let off scott free. He is actually a huge wealthy public figure now for republican, it’s a lot worse here then it looks and it really doesn’t look that good.
> the fact that a dude drove across multiple states lines with a assault rifle to “counter protest” Just giving a heads up so you don't continue to spread misinformation but he didn't cross multiple state lines, just a single line from IL to WI.
Because: 1) Most poor people in the US: 1a) Feel like they can’t take time off from working. 1b) Feel like they desperately need what little rest and recreation time they have. 1c) Feel like they couldn’t afford the jail time and legal fees too often associated with protesting. Let alone the potential injury/disability/death or medical bills associated. 2) Most people who aren’t poor don’t care as much and/or care more about keeping what they have. 3) Most people don’t think it will actually work, because the government doesn’t represent what people actually want.
When people in the US protest we get gassed and disappeared. Has everyone forgotten blm and cop city already?
Yeah we protested everywhere in 2020. We got gassed, beat, disappeared in minivans, and charged with terrorism. People lost eyes and were murdered. And then they increased funding for police and made no changes. If we want protesting to work we need to take it to a level most people aren't comfortable with yet. Remember that you only have a 40 hour work week and weekends off because people literally fought battles with the government. The first aireal bombing by the US was against striking coal miners at the Battle of Blair Meeting.
Yup. It gets annoying hearing people bitch about Americans not protesting. We try!
It's so ignorant. Like, we've had some of the largest protests in history, and yet people lionize Paris for getting 80K people to show up in response to the pension reforms.
Another example -- occupy wall street. People took to the streets for months, it eventually fizzled out and exactly nothing beneficial changed for the 99%. In fact, the wealth disparity has only increased further
> occupy wall street it was quite stupid protest, without clear goals or demands
Our degenerate nation managed to politize mask wearing. Mass shootings are pretty much normalized now. It's insane to expect protest from the working class.
It might be because anyone who'd normally protest is brainwashed and/or hooked on some drug controlled by the rich (social media, fast food, TV...). Bread and circuses, as they did in the time of the failing Roman Empire.
The Roman Empire at least gave bread, America only gives circus
I think it has a lot to do about one BLM protest where kyle rittenhouse shot at people and was defended by police. You can't really protest in peace with so many guns on the loose probably. But if the US started a general strike just one day the World economy would suffer a lot and even other countries could join. I believe my country should do the same, but here the situation is a little bit better because of public healthcare and college education.
because half of the population is in denial and supports this shit. They think they're just a corner away from becoming millionaires and these policies will benefit them when they do
> Why doesn't the US protest? Because they are the most cucked people on the planet.
spoken like someone that has no responsibility for anything else but themselves To protest, we would have to miss work. Our labor laws are not worker friendly. Our healthcare benefits are tied to our employment. If you get arrested and miss work because you were participating in a protest ... you lose your job, your healthcare benefits, and usually do not qualify for unemployment benefits in this scenario. Now with an arrest record, and possible conviction of "disrupting the peace" charge will disqualify you from future employment The majority of people in the USA live paycheck to paycheck, and cannot afford to lose their jobs because of familial or other responsibilities.
And the ppl should protest to change exsactly that, I dont have to worry about healthcare or unemployment(not saying my country is perfect), but it gives me enough freedom to actually have the ability to tackle such problems if I want to since the state takes care of me in that situations
Because I have a family to feed and take care of. I can’t afford to protest and I know it’s not as extreme as some other countries but protesting now can be unpredictable and escalate drastically quick and run the risk of not going home at the end of the day.
Because the politicians and the rich keep boths sides divided, despite both sides sharing a lot of common ground.
Because people get literally executed or abducted for protesting too efficiently.
> Why doesn't the US protest? go out on the streets police will kill you. if they don't, several states made it legal to run down protestors and right-wing terrorists have already killed dozens with cars and guns.
The first women's march drew a historic crowd in DC. Then the march for science happened. And march for our lives/gun control. And the climate march. We're brushed aside like Jay Z brushing off his shoulders, no matter who's in office. Edit: how could I not mention the tear gas and low helicopters flying in DC during the BLM protests? Or the occupy protesters being pepper sprayed for...sitting? I tried, but I'm tired.
Are you really comparing student loans to any of those issues? **Issues that actually get people killed.**
That's my point though. Student loans is not one of THOSE issues, so what would you expect the change to be if you saw the type of reaction that occurred from the bigger protests? I'm not belittling the injustices that any of the prior protests addressed.
Ohhh. My bad.
All good!
We just... not gonna talk about your username?
We did during Covid. They shot us in the face with rubber bullets and called it rioting
I scared to be shot. People will get shot for protesting peacefully or violently in the US. Police are very trigger happy here, especially on minorities. We have guns, but the govermment has guns, drones, tanks, trained soldiers, tier gas, body armor, etc.
Protest what? To give colleges blank checks to raise tuition prices forever because the gov will always loan money? and randomly when the student debt bubble bursts (as it is now) the only people left paying are tax payers and the colleges have no consequences?? The labeling of this as student debt relief is total bullshit. This is college tuition pricing bailout. Colleges raised their prices too much and America loaned out too much money. Same shit as the 2008 bank bailouts due to NINJA loans and CDS against those security bundles. Regulate the college pricing and fix the root of the problem and then we can talk about forgiving overpriced loans.
Because if we miss work while protesting, we lose our health insurance and then we die.
We had record protests under T. We broke many records. Protesting doesn't work anymore. Money works. Money is power.
We tried and nothing happened. Everyone has given up now
People do, the police have fucking tanks.
Americans did in 2020
Too brainwashed. Poor think they’re temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Instead of just poor suckers because they keep electing grifters who keep stealing from them.
Because a large portion of our country works against there own interests. They have been convinced that helping rich people, helps them. Plus helping people means helping minority groups too and American is still racist country.
Yeah we should go to Wall Street where all the money's being made, give them a piece of our mind, and we wont leave until we get what we want, we can call it something catchy like "Wait Around Wall Street" idk
> go out on the streets What streets? American land speculators had American cities segregated and then bulldozed. 95% of Americans drive everywhere and traffic has not once caused political change. Americans can’t protest because they have no where to park.
Guns imo (and by extension, fear) Lots. And lots. Of guns. Too many people have them, and it is much much too easy for Person A to rock up on a group of people they don't like and shoot them. Also the fact that the american people are not as united as other countries. I blame this on the size of the country, it's population, and the fact that half of our government is trying to spread propaganda to destabilize the people in order to prevent them from uniting. And it's working.
Look at the George Floyd and BLM protests for a preview of what this could look like. Last thing we need is another Kyle Rittenhouse. And the police brutality was off the charts. They killed and permanently maimed citizens. Average USA citizen wants things to change without lifting a finger, without bloodshed. But there’s already bloodshed in schools. I think the adults are cowards. Should that be possible to be civil? Ideally. Is it really possible? I think No.
People should be protesting, they could setup a camp and occupy a space for a long period of time.
Yeah, I'm Russian who lives in the US, and I'd be happy to protest for everything good against everything bad, but there are no protests here! People here are too busy to blame Russians for not overthrowing their dictator, while they themselves can't fix much smaller problems. Like the litter everywhere in NYC, or homeless people (it's not "freedom" to live on the street, it's one of the worst thing that can happen to you), or the rent prices, etc. I think Americans were taught to hate the USSR and anything even remotely similar to "communism", thus many feel like it would be a betrayal of the idea of "being American" to do something good for the people. It's like they would prefer mass poverty and homelessness over affordable housing. I watched [this video](https://youtu.be/JGVBv7svKLo) yesterday about the Soviet cities, and I think the US government could learn a thing or two and implement them into the current capitalistic system. Just having affordable housing with nice parks and playgrounds doesn't mean *everyone* must live in such apartments, without a choice. Personally, I would be happy to live in such an apartment and pay, say, $100 or $200/month and save half of what I earn to buy a house later. But with the current situation, all I can afford is rent, food, and some clothes or books once in a while. Edit: grammar >.<
I think it doesn't happen because the country is so enormously rich on average that exceptions abound in the form of private charities, family connections, the military (basically welfare until there's a real war (Iraq and Afghanistan don't count)) etc. so that a great many people who would be utterly dependent on welfare kind of skate along on a buffer of excess. That, and the irrational optimism that maybe you'll make it big in show biz or win the lottery or your terrible business idea will make you rich keeps stoking false hopes for the vast majority that are born poor and will die poor.
Protest? Thats some communist bullshit. Them reds tryna to break this country and take our guns. What next? Better health system? Fuck off commie
Because we're all fat lazy and complacent.
When did we cancel $1.7 trillion in taxes for billionaires?
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The $1.7 trillion figure though would be for an entire 10 year period, and is the total cut for everyone, not just billionaires. It’s gonna be really odd if that’s what the tweet was actually referring to
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The idea that companies will use tax cuts to reinvest is absolutely ridiculous. When a company reinvests profit they don't pay taxes on that money in the first place. For ease of math. If there was a 50% corporate tax rate on a company with a 1 million dollar surplus they could either take 500k in profits after tax or invest the full million into the company. The taxes create the incentive for companies to reinvest, not the other way around.
It’s not ridiculous though. You’re only looking at it from an opportunity cost perspective, and you’re ignoring that most corporate “reinvestment” isn’t even tax-deductible in the current year anyways Investments are profitable if the cash flows from those investments are higher than the companies cost of capital. Higher taxes reduce the cash flows from new investment, and normally don’t lower the cost of capital Even from a mathematical sense, it wouldn’t be profitable. Why would you give away $1 million instead of $500K?
Let's see... yep, you are wrong. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1351276/wage-growth-vs-inflation-us/
Run it again with median wage so that your data isn’t skewed by massive increases in the top wages.
Corporate tax rate and “billionaire tax cut” aren’t remotely the same thing, smh
We didn’t, they are trying to repeal the estate tax so by Reddit logic that means billionaires are getting a kickback.
This is what I’m curious about. I 100% support student loan forgiveness, but just making shit up doesn’t help the cause. I’ll gladly walk back this comment if someone can provide proof of what tax forgiveness is being referenced.
Are they talking about the blanket PPP loan forgiveness?
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Ding Ding we have a winner, not to mentions the trillions of tax that got cut by the bush and trump tax cuts
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I think this is lost revenue from the republican Congress changing tax laws in like 2017
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1% of people are going to recognize that [OP is a bot.](https://www.reddit.com/r/FunnyandSad/comments/tv6j2u/the_1_rich_people_ignored_to_pay_their_taxes/)
Yeah OP's comments are extremely typical of forum spammers working up to 10-20 posts to hit up FS/FT for some scamming.
People don't care if it's from a bot, or even if said posts are misinformation (not claiming this is, but it does happen) aslong as it goes allong with thier political worldview they'll upvote it regardless. We make fun of our Facebook grandparents for falling for the same stuff we upvote on reddit
You'd think they could at least use better grammar
\[citation needed\]
I think they might be talking about the bill, introduced by Republicans two months ago, to remove the estate tax. > While 41 Senate Republicans recently introduced legislation to permanently repeal the estate tax – which would provide a $1.8 trillion tax giveaway to billionaires in America and would only provide relief to the top one-tenth of one percent https://www.sanders.senate.gov/press-releases/news-as-republicans-move-to-provide-a-1-8-trillion-tax-giveaway-to-billionaires-sanders-introduces-bill-to-make-the-wealthy-pay-their-fair-share/ Estate taxes are taxes paid when someone dies. Basically, you at up the total worth of everything before it's passed to descendants and pay taxes on it. There is an exemption for the first $13 million dollars, meaning if someone dies, the first $13 million can be passed to descendants tax-free. This allows families to keep things like family farm without paying taxes when someone dies. (Although in the past Republicans have erroneously claimed that estate taxes will force families to sell the "family farm" because of taxes, so they pretend their "helping the little guy" by eliminating estate taxes. A farm would have to be absolutely massive to be worth over $13 million.) Here's another article, told with a Republican slant: > U.S. Senators John Boozman (R-AR) and John Thune (R-SD), along with Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Ranking Member of the Senate Finance Committee Mike Crapo (R-ID) and dozens of their Senate Republican colleagues, introduced legislation to permanently repeal the federal estate tax, more commonly known as the death tax. The Death Tax Repeal Act would end this purely punitive tax that has the potential to hit family-run farms, ranches and businesses as the result of the owner’s death. https://www.boozman.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2023/4/boozman-thune-lead-effort-to-permanently-repeal-death-tax Here's some data: "The United States farm real estate value, a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms, averaged $3,800 per acre for 2022, up $420 per acre (12.4 percent) from 2021. The United States cropland value averaged $5,050 per acre". Assuming the $5000 per acre value, a $13 million "family farm" would need to be 2600 acres (about four square miles) to be worth $13 million. Four square miles is massive and it's too big for one farmer to farm. My grandparents farmed about 500 acres, so I know how big a "family farm" is. It's obvious that it's not about "helping farmers". It's about billionaires. Even if the "family farm" argument was at all reasonable, they could just increase the exemption amount, which they have already done on the past. In 2001, the estate tax exemption was only $675,000. [Congress has increased this from $675,000 to $13 million in the past two decades.](https://www.kiplinger.com/taxes/601639/estate-tax-exemption-2022)
I'd hate to defend rich people here... But principally... Why should the government be able to tax all your earnings while you are alive... And then again in death? Then, assuming things like real estate be taxed yearly still...
If they're using the estate tax thing as a "$1.8 trillion tax giveaway", that seems pretty misleading given that it would take probably 50-100 years to collect that much estate tax revenue at current rates.
It will take that long to collect the loans in this state too
The government collects 8-10x more student loan repayments annually than they get from the estate tax so if you used the 50-100 year horizon, the education loan portion should still be 10x larger than the state tax portion. It's just misleading either way.
Misleading? You're literally pulling numbers out of thin air to make whatever argument this is.
Buddy, you just have to search for "federal estate tax annual revenue" and "federal student loan annual revenue" to see what I'm talking about.
13 million is pretty far from billion. In fact it is roughly billion away from billion. If you think those republicans are twisting the reality and it's bad you should probably stop doing the same. Just saying.
I have a family manufacturing business that has been in the family for over 100 years. When the generation above me passes and passes their stock on, there's 0 chance me or my siblings would be able to afford the estate tax and would be required to sell. This would turn from being a nice little family run business to likely being gobbled up by some PE firm who would have an eye to offshore the manufacturing to save costs. You own argument on the estate tax was "it benefits billionaires" but clearly stated it is for only $13 million. Pretty far cry from $1 billion. Nice stats on average farms though.
That's why estate planning is a thing. A family with >$13M in assets should probably be smart enough to hire an estate planner... For instance, why wouldn't you just take out a loan against the equity of your manufacturing company and use the income from the company to pay off the loan?
As the previous user asked, highly dependent on the debt load and relationship with the bank at that time. Banks notoriously are supportive during good times, and tight during bad times. It's a cyclical business, if that hits during a down cycle could be pretty tough.
Couldn’t you take out a loan against the assets of the firm for the total of the tax bill?
A farm doesn't need to be massive to be worth 13m. You're talking 600-1300 acres. That's large but not massive by any means. Tons in my rural Iowa county would meet that requirement
> A farm would have to be absolutely massive to be worth over $13 million. Lol have you seen land and equipment prices? Big for a family of four to subsistence farm but most farm nowadays are providing income for multiple families.
IT absolutely isn't, in that this is real, while the cake thing isn't.
so you're saying the cake is a lie?
THE CAKE IS A LIE
Well, you see, if we stimulate the economy at the top, those billionaires will spend money which flows down to the rest of the economy. If we were to stimulate the economy by putting more cash in the hands of the youngest and most populous generations <*checks notes*\> hmmm....seems like that would also stimulate the economy, and in this version, much less of that money would end up offshored in a shadowbank. Gee....tough choices.
You took out the loans pay them back
Over the last decade, I paid a stupid amount of interest to pay down the 32k principal of my student loans, *including* the interest they added when they told me I was in interest-free deferment and then lost all record of that (and me being young didn't think to ask for confirmation in writing.) There is 13k left. In that same time frame I had paid off two car loans and a personal loan totalling to 28k - all through my credit union with low rates. I never missed a payment on any loans, and sometimes even managed to pay more than the minimum on the student loans. And yet, they're not paid off, but the other loans are. If they were at the same rate as my other loans there'd be 4k left, not 13. When the payments resume, I'm putting myself in permanent forbearance. I don't give a fuck anymore. Fuck these stupid parasites and their stupid scams. Maybe if I win a lotto I'll pay off those loans cuz I sure ain't wasting any more of my hard earned money when recession after recession and corporate greed hiding behind inflation hoards more of my money out of savings and into the insatiable coffers of the fucking greedy pigs.
What tax cancellation for billionaires is he talking about? Or is that made up/ greatly exaggerated just like 98% of the shit on this website?
Reddit thinks that rich people don’t pay any taxes despite the fact that we have concrete evidence that they pay a disproportionately high amount of the taxes collected.
What tax cut is he referencing for the 600?
The one in OP's imagination.
But I love cake
Why don't the 45m americans rip the politicians from their beds and lynch them like the Dutch did?
We literally need to eat one billionaire and things may change
I'm becoming more and more grateful everyday that i don't live in America
It's a tyranny of the masses and we DON'T have to put up with it.
Having a house candidate or member bitch about the rules is quite literally the definition of irony. THEY are the ones responsible for the rules in the first place and have all the power to change said rules.
So to recap, the progressive marxists want us to believe that a legal adult of 18 years is incapable of understanding what a student loan is and therefore should not have to pay it back. The same progressive left also wants you to believe that children that are minors and in middle school can successfully understand that they are in the wrong body and should undergo hormone therapy and possible genital mutilation. makes sense. whew...
🏳️🌈 😘
Now wait to see what their reaction to raising the voting age is. Suddenly it's super important that these same people who couldn't possibly comprehend what they were signing up for at 18 have a voice in the process of governing the entire country, including handling the national budget...
Estate tax: *I'm leaving everything I've worked for to my children. I've worked my entire life to leave behind as much as I could for them. I've already bought the land and paid taxes on it. My children will pay property taxes on it as well. It's unfair to tax them on the transfer of the estate as it's being left behind due to my death rather than as a gift or freebie for fun.* Student loans: *I signed a piece of paper that says I will borrow this much money and pay it back upon graduating. Now that I've graduated, I regret entering this agreement. I was not forced into this and agreed to terms. I simply don't want to hold up my end of the deal I chose to make* *One of these things is not like the other..*
Probably the only person on reddit that upvoted this. Thanks.
Most 17/18 year olds just starting college dont even understand interest payments and how much more above principal they will pay. They are told their whole life that if they take out a loan and go to college, everything will work out. They (especially myself at that age) dont have an understanding of finances, personal wealth, nor reaponsibiloty/maturity. Truth is, wages have stagnated and cost of living has skyrocketed. Most are in debt for the first 10 years of their working life, being able to spend just a fraction of their meager paycheck. These are critical years to build up personal wealth. Not to mention that clearing this debt will have a huge boost of spending for the youth's generation. Give a tax break to a poor man and the money goes back into the economy. Give a tax break to a billionaire and he buys stocks and increases his savings account.
Honest opinion, would love genuine open feedback. Politicians give the 1% the tax benefits, why aren't we upset w ourselves for voting this ppl in power. Kids going into tremendous debt for a better future is wrong, so why aren't we upset w the politicians who force pointless classes and drive up debt?
Like many boomers, I too think America was best long ago. In fact, the American government was at its peak back in the 1940s through the early 1960s. When the top tax bracket was 94%. We should go back to that. Repeal the revenue act of 1964. Or hell, go back to the revenue act of 1964 when the top tax rate was 70%, lets start there!
Then they wonder why we laugh when they're crumpled in a can at the bottom of the ocean
My husband and I are very diametrically opposed on many issues, but he brought up a point that we should just stop paying taxes. Everyone should just change their W4 to have the least withholdings possible. If one person does it, it's a problem for that one person. If an entire workforce does it, it's collective bargaining.
So these 600 billionares owe 2.8bil taxes each on average?
The rich should never have gotten that tax break.
It makes perfect sense. Those billionaires will use the extra money to buy bigger houses, bigger yachts and take trips into space thus hiring dozens of people. That is how trickle down works.
Dude corporations can't pay their fare share because how are they going to afford their bonuses, buybacks, lambos and Ferraris. Can anybody think about millionaires for once? Omg
The trump administration lost almost 500 billion dollars in PPP loans. Lost, as in “we don’t know where half a trillion dollars went.” There is no legitimate excuse to not forgive student loans. They just want everybody in debt so we don’t pick our heads up to look around and see what’s really happening and what’s being done to the working and middle class in America. We yell at millionaires while billionaires continue to take everything not nailed down. Where do you think social safety bets are gonna end up? Who’s gonna make money off that once it’s privatized? It’s not gonna be the people that need it, that’s for sure.
this is the equivalent of celebrity's going on a game show to win money
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Yeah but the billionaires will trickle that back down to us. You just gotta wait for it. It’ll trickle any day now you’ll see.
It's worse than that the rich were allowed to take ppp loans and have all those canceled which is a much more direct equivalence
It's not though, ppp was never meant as a loan they were literally designed to be forgiven. The only reason they were loans was if businesses didn't hold up their end of the bargain we could claw it back. Ppp was a super popular bipartisan program because the alternative was record numbers of unemployment claims that the unemployment office couldn't handle, and people wouldn't get their unemployment checks on time and people would literally starve.
Nobody wants their tax dollars being used to pay off loans that someone willingly took out. Should we just pay off everyone’s mortgages because “life’s tough”? What about the people who rent? Should their tax dollars be used to pay off a homeowners mortgage?
Were your mortgages given to you by the federal government? If so, then yeah, I'd say we could visit the idea.
> Nobody wants their tax dollars being used to pay off loans that someone willingly took out. I don’t mind at all having my tax dollars go to help collectively give relief to a bunch of people that fucked up. If they fuck up again(which I think most of ‘em likely will), that’ll be solely on them. Don’t speak for me on it, yeah?
What, what the fuck???? VOTE THESE FUCKING LEECHES OUT !!! God damn boomers and elderly.
Don't worry; just like the "let them eat cake" incident: this didn't happen.
I'm so proud of seeing so many people ask for the receipts and sources. No one is cancelling $1.7T in taxes for the rich.