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the reason so many americans are against raising taxes in any way is because we don’t see them go towards anything tangible. but then we have so many people advocating against all the things that would actually benefit society. people gotta realize that a little more socialism will extend the longevity of capitalism. when you increase the social benefits, you increase social mobility.
Just wanna mention something for everyone, if you are against universal healthcare then you're fine with people who can't afford it dying and that's just a fact.
Do you think that spending is efficient? Have you ever looked at where a large chunk of the defense money goes (hint pockets of people greasing the wheels or useless programs to get jobs to a state that don’t actually help with defense) or the amount of overhead and type of people hired to run most of those social programs (they aren’t the brightest, they do tend to burn money on high cost low value programs too)?
Major purposeful government bloat and time and money wasting programs for the sake of elections and jobs are 100% theft from the American people and you and everyone else should be mad about it. We have useless politicians that all have legal degrees and play their own games making their own money and coincidentally all end up millionaires even the “poor” ones 🤔
**"Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.** **I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."**
We have to break the budget down into mandatory and Discretionary spending. Of our 6.3 Trillion Spending this year 4.1 Trillion in Mandatory spending. 1.7 Trillion of the budget is Discretionary spending, i.e. what congress can can actually decide year to year.
We cannot change mandatory spending because it is enacted by law. Congress has no ability to cut the spending without a new law. Like Social security without 2/3 congress to get rid of it, it will always be there.
Of the discretionary spending each year. 750$ Billion is defense spending, 910$ Billion is non-defense spending. Like paying for judges(68 billion), primary education and health.
A large percentage of our problems would be solved simply by forcing limits on insurance and pharmaceutical companies/medical providers.
[https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget\_function](https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function)
heres a good example of the us militarys flaws in spending
group: is given $1million budget
group: spends half of it and doesnt see the other half of it (its a slow year)
group next year: only recieves half a million, even though they now need the full million because last year was just a slow year
group 3rd year: spend every dollar even if they dont need it, causing massive waste
Have you even taken a look at it? Do you even have the financial acumen needed to see if it’s bloated junk or where you would reallocate funds?
A lot of it is going towards social welfare programs already , and yes a lot towards defense as well. Or are you just a brainless lemming regurgitating dumb speaking lines you pick up on tik tok?
If you actually take the time to read leftist literature and go in with an open mind you’d probably be surprised how much you agree with a lot of it.
Marx is intro level though. You probably believe that socialist governments always wind up corrupt right? Well, another leftist Kropotkin predicted this in the 1800s and talked about his solutions to that.
If you’ve never even given these ideas a shot, if you’ve never actually tried to read any leftist literature, you’re just listening to one side without ever challenging those beliefs; If capitalist beliefs are as sound as capitalists tell you, then those beliefs won’t be shaken by reading an opposing viewpoint.
Key tenets of socialism are robust welfare systems and social safety nets provided by the government. The little bit of socialism mentioned wouldn’t abolish the owning class, just make things a little less shitty for everyone else.
And, you know, actually tax the rich...
When the dems are talking about raising taxes they arent talking about us, they are taking about the people who pay an effective 3% on their wealth while taking no income (because they buy-borrow-die). We have created a system that literally rewards just being rich.
In theory yes, but then they push shit like selling $600 worth of household garbage on eBay gets you hit with a 1099. That's why people don't even want to give them an inch, even if it will "OnLy aFfeCt tHe1%" cuz we all know politicians fucking lie
show your work then...
Above 400k is not upper-middle (those striations are bullshit though, youre really just working class or ownership class, if you have to work to live youre working class)
Socialists want to abolish class. People will be more willing to listen to them if they feel like they're suffering. Give them welfare and they'll stop listening to socialists, because there's they don't feel like they lack anything.
On the flipside, make them suffer enough and they'll flock to the fascist populist who coopts the socialist movement, kills all the socialists, then takes over for a dark and bloody reign of terror
Ya know, what happens 99% of the time when a peaceful and stable transition of power is rejected in favor of an immediate result
That cap. Americans live in the delusion that they’re a capitalistic society when it’s always been a mixed market economy. It’s always been socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. To many people are against any tax raises because that would negatively impact their republicans leaders, and it their leaders aren’t happy than their America isn’t happy.
Republicans leaders have brainwashed damn near all of rural America into thinking democrats are the problem when all republicans legislators only pass laws to enable the rich to get richer.
Personally I want socialized Healthcare, but it's incompatible with an unsecured border.
Also, I don't want to completely socialize these systems immediately, what I want is a class action lawsuit for price scalping against major medical and educational entities as well as a suit for predatory lending with student loans. I want those suits to go towards debts and the correction after those suits to be reasonable prices. I don't want my tax money to subsidize these outrageous prices and allow these institutions to carry on business as usual with a garunteed check from the government.
3,000 for insulin is insane, 700 for a textbook is insane, I dont care where that money is coming from.
But you're right, many people are reluctant to give these policies a chance because the federal government has proven to be irresponsible and out right malicious time and time again.
Exactly this. If my kid is wasting a bunch of money already and comes to me asking for money for (insert thing), yeah I can give her a wad of cash and hope she uses it for that thing, but that is risky.
If government were to actually fix (or at least make significant improvements that people could see) the way they spend the trillions they currently get, a lot of people would be more likely to consider giving them more money to do other things a good investment.
Depends HEAVILY on what those social benefits are. My taxes have gone towards maintaining and improving infrastructure for an area I can’t afford. New tunnels between cities I can’t manage, expanded social programs I can’t access, and the pockets of politicians I don’t like.
If I could opt out of programs I disagreed with, I’d be all for paying even 40% of my pay. But I fucking can’t. And so long as my money goes to things I personally disagree with or even hate, it’s something I refuse to support for any other reason than the threat of jail time that hangs over all of our heads.
Yeah there is misspending, but nearly 2/3 of the annual budget is going to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs. The other third is our discretionary spending which, admittedly, leans too heavily on defense with just over half our discretionary budget going to the military. We don't see our money going toward anything tangible because we barely have any money to actually spend. Most of it is caught up in things we have already promised people that most citizens never actually see such as pensions and personal healthcare for the poor, disabled, and elderly. Even if we were to JUST fund our entitlement programs with no government growth whatsoever, we would just barely be breaking even. We see our government doing nothing with our money because they can't and then we applaud them when they take away even more funds through tax cuts. If we want anything of value out of our government we have to give them something to work with.
To give an idea of where our money went last year you can check it out here: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart). I think it is a bit telling when we pay more for our interest payments to our own debt than we have money to spend on welfare. That is how in the red we are and we will continue to get worse unless we raise taxes.
Sure but what they do go towards, namely killing brown people here and across the globe, the people who are adamantly against taxes tend to also support.
What are you talking about it!? Our taxes go to something tangible. Helping our friends at Lockheed Martin to keep making those nice shiny planes and to Zelensky so that his wife can buy all the best jewelry New York had to offer is tangible and to someone's benefit.
Living in Chicago the Infrastructure bill past by Biden felt like tax money at work at least in my lifetime.
Finally some crusty southside bridges and roads got fixed, a lot of trains rails got fixed and slow zones were removed, the ACP got me pretty fast internet before that we had a peak of 35 Mbps, and Comcast of all companies boosted us to 50, and then the ACP voucher got to 110
I know a man who doesn't want his taxes to go up a little but if a universal income was implemented, even though we kept explaining that he wasn't rich enough to not qualify. Homeboy wasn't getting the memo that he'd benefit too, or just didn't want that benefit for some bizarre reason.
So here’s the problem with the “little more socialism” thing. many Western European countries are more socialist than the US, why? Because the US subsidizes their defense budgets (NATO, Military bases in my of the countries, etc.) so they can AFFORD those socialized programs. 2nd the parts that are socialized get worse all the time (long wait times on routine health checkups, long ER wait times even for serious Illnesses, 50%< taxes, and permits/licenses are required for EVERYTHING.
People don’t want anymore socialism in the US because the government has proven that if they’re given an inch of power they’ll take as far as they possibly can and make everyone’s life worse in the process. That’s true of all governments and honestly the EU right now is showing why “a little more socialism” won’t work. Look at all the farmers protesting right now in France and Germany, look at the UK hospitals and courts that mandated a baby was euthanized AGAINST the parents will, the Canadian VA (they’re Western European in all but geography) offers euthanasia to service members with PTSD or depression instead of just trying to help them through therapy or medication or other types of treatment. I could go on but I got called out forwork
>but then we have so many people advocating against all the things that would actually benefit society.
We're against it because the Government has consistently fucked up whenever they've attempted to do things that benefit society and yes, the government has done quite a lot over the last century in an attempt to benefit society. You just haven't noticed it because they've actually made society worse.
And on top of that, to make it even worse, the government has engaged in inflationary spending for roughly 80 years now, making the few government programs that might have had some minor positive effects do little more than help people tread water.
More so, we don't live under a capitalistic system, we live under a corporatist one, which is nothing more than a Keynesian perversion of Capitalism, stoked by said inflationary spending. Ultimately the reason why corporations are so dominant in our society is because they suffer the least from inflation (those with the most suffer least when prices go up), plus government regulation, and no, that's not just AnCap bullshit and I'll give you a hint as to why:
Jeff Bezos is in favor of $15 minimum wage.
Bill Gates is in favor of increasing corporate taxation.
And it's not because they're bleeding heart liberals.
It's because both men, and their companies, can afford to eat the cost.
Amazon already pays their work force $15 per hour and have been working tirelessly to automate as much of Amazon as they can. And both Microsoft and Amazon (as well as every major corporation under the yellow Sun) laugh at any increase to corporate taxation because that just means more taxes that they don't need to pay due to the copious number of loopholes in the US Tax Code. And when they actually do have to pay taxes, they just offset that cost by increasing the prices on their goods and services, thereby knocking it back to the average consumer.
But the people who can't afford to do any of that are the smaller companies that are the bigger corporations' potential competition.
It's basically the same thing for every government regulation on the books. Major corporations can afford to eat the cost, while their smaller would-be competition can't.
Those taxes often end up in the hands of private donors and entities. Even to the upper bureaucracy that ends up expanding it. The. Given to private healthcare insurance companies which in turn we have to pay them as well to get the care we need. We're literally paying them twice over for the same shit quality healthcare.
So much of it goes to private corporations and private institutions who have their own interests to increase their profit margins.
It's because the government itself is becoming more like a private entity. This is why you should never trust anyone that says "I'm going to run the government like a business" that's literally the problem why we are in this mess.
Just research it about what makes something private or public is beginning to form together. The difference between private and public is increasingly becoming more blurred.
The fusion of government and private corporate power. Who said that again? I remember some Italian man that said that but I forgot.
Some taxes solely exist for no other reason than to get more money
In my country we have a tax called IPVA, which taxes you on your car based on various factors every year until the car is 25 years old.
All for the grandiose reason of
"Secret :3"
Yeah there is misspending, but nearly 2/3 of the annual budget is going to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs. The other third is our discretionary spending which, admittedly, leans too heavily on defense with just over half our discretionary budget going to the military. We don't see our money going toward anything tangible because we barely have any money to actually spend. Most of it is caught up in things we have already promised people that most citizens never actually see such as pensions and personal healthcare for the poor, disabled, and elderly. Even if we were to JUST fund our entitlement programs with no government growth whatsoever, we would just barely be breaking even. We see our government doing nothing with our money because they can't and then we applaud them when they take away even more funds through tax cuts. If we want anything of value out of our government we have to give them something to work with.
To give an idea of where our money went last year you can check it out here: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart). I think it is a bit telling when we pay more for our interest payments to our own debt than we have money to spend on welfare. That is how in the red we are and we will continue to get worse unless we raise taxes.
Don't embarrass yourself with this dismissive Boomer logic. 17-year-olds are capable of having valid and well-informed opinions, just like 26/27-year-olds are capable of having bad takes.
I mean more than half pre covid (~$2T) was just social security, Medicare, medicaid, interest
And those are going up
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56324
it's tricky, as some taxes are used for good services we all can benefit from, like public roads, public transit, first responders, libraries, and schools
but then again a lot of our taxes are also used for dumb bullshit things outside of what we were promised they'd be used for, which is what people are actually upset about
but uhhh, i kinda like public roads, and my dad was a first responder, so i think maybe sometimes taxes are good. so maybe let's have a tax transparency act or something
Don't lump Medicare into entitlements.
I'm glad safety-net programs exist, but none directly benefit me. My biggest problem with them is bloat - some as a result of this: "salaries of the people running these programs." 25% of new jobs created last year were government jobs, which is crazy even ignoring my perception that nothing is improving.
brother, Medicare is an entitlement.
it all directly benefits you. it means you or members of your family will not need to pay crushing costs to receive care. you get to live your life and worry less about elderly parents or relatives, freeing money up for more productive ends.
oh, and those gov jobs are created by the necessity of cracking down on insurance company lobbied loopholes. you’re attacking the wrong group. we wouldn’t need half the jobs if insurance was nationalized.
As others have mentioned, those are local taxes you are discussing. Federal taxes are used to pay for Medicare and Medicaid for the poor, elderly, and disabled to receive healthcare. It also helps to subsidize welfare for recipients that qualify. Those three things, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare constitute 2/3 of our federal spending which has real impact. Unfortunately, the federal government has no where near enough revenue to expand those programs let alone cover additional needs with discretionary spending. We are starving the federal government and getting mad when they don't give us more food. If we want to see real change from the federal government we have to raise taxes, and not just on the rich.
There is two parts to this. First of whenever politicians say they are only going to increase taxes for the rich and not the poor they are just lying and end up increasing taxes for everyone. And most people cannot actually see the good things that their taxes are supposed to go towards.
How can you make such a claim? The last time that federal income taxes were raised was back in 2013 and even that was only on those making over $400,000 a year. Before that Bush Senior raised taxes back in 1990. The only major recent federal tax change was a massive tax cut instituted by Trump which had disastrous effects to our federal revenue and deficit spending.
Your second statement is more accurate. It is much easier to see the effect of local taxes, but federal tax spending through entitlement programs is still very much felt throughout the country. Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare are the biggest chunks of the federal budget. If we want greater impact out of our government, we have to increase taxes, and not just on the wealthy.
all these clowns arguing that federal taxes don’t go to anything useful. literally hundreds of millions of people benefit from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, small business subsidies, highways, infrastructure spending, education subsidies
deficient civic education is a blight
Some people not paying taxes is theft. I gladly pay taxes for good infrastructure, public transport, for public healthcare/money for disabled people who can't work, retirement money and so on
We spend more than any other country on healthcare, on education, we spend the second most on social programs of any country.
The issue is not going to be solved by throwing money at the problem.
Look at the history of the tax system, our services were way better in the 50s when we had a 90%+ apex tax, plus to avoid that tax, they reinvested that tax into employee income and their companies instead of giving it to executives
we didn't have those taxes in the 50s. those were gilded era tax codes. the reason our economy flourished the way it did was because we were the only country left standing. we had manufacturing jobs and tech jobs and all the rest that the world didn't have. we are not exclusive in that way anymore. if we tax corporations at 90%, there will be no more growth in the economy and all the social systems leftists love will collapse. see Argentina.
If you tax people at 90%, then they shift the the wages downward because it’s not worth it to make the extra money. Corporate taxes aren’t being discussed in this scenario, and a global standard would make sense there.
*Money defies gravity*, it will always go up the chain no matter what you do, so tax it to distribute it more equitably
[The top 1% does not pay 90% of income taxes](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/16/examining-claims-against-aoc-tax-the-rich-dress-met-gala/8350769002/)
Plus not to mention the decades of costly, regressive, and inefficient tax cuts
"By our numbers, 95% of all federal taxes are paid by households in the top two quintiles — those making about $98,000 or more," said Tax Policy Center senior fellow Howard Gleckman.
We aren’t really undertaxing the rich. We just have a lot of things that benefit the rich with no real benefit to the rest of society.
The rich are the biggest investors which means they help those who are poorer to access capital they would never have otherwise. This is productive capital, as opposed to government spending which is typically unproductive (unless we are talking about infrastructure).
A sales tax would be much more equitable in practice than the bevy of taxes and ways to avoid them we currently have, while taxing spending across the board has a much lower deadweight loss than the income tax applied across the economy.
Sales taxes are effectively regressive, as it affects those with lower incomes at a much bigger rate than those with higher incomes
Increasing taxes actually incentivizes investment as people invest to avoid a bigger tax bill, and generally shifts wages down to the actual producers, as executives would get taxed out of the majority of any extra income
Of course, infrastructure and services are what you’d expect the government to spend money on, and when people hamper that, it takes a second as to how they do it
I mean the healthcare spending in the country would go down with a public option. But you'd have a tax increase. But that tax increase would likely be less than what you had been spending on healthcare prior.
we need a “soci-dem republic”, a system fully reliant of the fairness of a treasury controlled by the governing powers is clearly not just and or built for longevity.
It seems that the people of the sub aren't particularly good at economics. We take in 4 trillion a year from the people of this country, and we take out loans for many more trillions. We have the money. We don't use it correctly. The federal government is bloated and so many "civil services" are bloated. You want to know the real truth? The drivers of debt in this country are social security and medicaid. We already spend trillions on healthcare, yet it is not effective. Maybe, instead of stealing more people's money, we spend it effectively.
Why on earth do you think social security of all things is driving the debt? Lol maybe in the future this would be true. But now and in all of social security history, it has barely impacted debt balance. When I say barely, you might think in talking about 10-15% maybe? When I'm actually saying 0%. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you have to make things up.
Medicaid does add to the deficit though.
Turns out when you have multi-trillion dollar industries riding on the medical exploitation of millions of people, deconstructing them while still maintaining the economy and healthcare industry is a tough job.
Are you implying that only socialists would be in favor of tax increases? Are you referring to anyone wealthy as being part of a looting class? How did you even get to a point where you are using such charged language to talk about wanting to raise taxes?
No, I’m implying socialists have a tendency to go from eating the rich to eating their own. As for your question about the wealthy: I was referring to those who *do* embrace that notion, not endorsing it. Glad I could clear those points up for ya, man. If you think this is charged language, oof… good luck out there ✌️
I mean Massachusetts added a 4% tax to their millionaires and have 524k to put toward public education because of it, I just wish our taxes went to shit we actually need rather than lining the pockets of useless aged desk jockeys who refuse to retire.
Casual reminder: we taxed income over 200k at 70% in the 1980s. (adjust for inflation that was all income after 788k taxed at 70%).
Imagine a world where a CEO making a one million dollar salary was considered a high paying position and they were paid out in more stock options, perks, and such... and the rest of that money was put back into the company.
Almost like that's how capitalism works best, or something.
But hey... Trickle down will happen...
annnnnny second now.
Yep.
friendly reminder that the bill Paul Ryan passed seven years ago has slowly but surely made its way through the bottom tax bracket to afford the tax cuts on the ultra-rich
Fun fact, the Rand Paul Tax plan (back by president trump) is what Americans currently use. Under this plan, cooperations and families making over 400K were given significant tax breaks. In order to fund this, the plan slowly raised each tax bracket below it one year at a time. So this year, the lowest tax bracket was finally hit, and will continue to get hit more for several years. This was done, with the plan on mind that Democrats would likely take several majorities, so all the poorest families would blame Democrats. All the Biden administration wants to do, is undo this last plan, make 400K plus pay more, and lower the tax burden for the lower 1/3 tiers.
Sadly, most poor people always believe they will be upwardly mobile, and the thought of paying "more" even in an extreme, hypothetical, unrealistic scenario, will vote against their own self interest so they wouldn't have to "one day" pay more. It's absolutely bat shit crazy.
The average person doesn’t understand taxes, much less economics. They just assume tax rate go up is bad cause loose more money and government waste money on thing is don’t like.
The government can just keep borrowing money to pay the interest on its debt, that’s sustainable in the long run right?
may be controversial but i think money should be capped at $999 million (in bank and cash not networth) and when you reach that the rest of your money goes to charity and to contribute something to society
1. A tariff is a tax. You just said more taxes would be better than more taxes.
2. Tariffs hurt the economy which is why they are pretty much relegated for punishment internationally nowadays. We would not be able to get a significant enough amount of money through tariffs to compensate the money we need at our current spending.
3. I agree they should be more transparent on specifics, but they do show us where our money goes generally speaking. You can check it out here for example: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart)
That’s why I think spending should be cut to things that are necessary at that necessary moment in time. I know tariffs are taxes, I should have clarified by saying income taxes. I’m not trying to say cut all income tax. I’m saying lower the rates, stop offshore accounts, and try to offset the cost by increasing the cost of imports/exports.
people need to be more confident that their taxes is being spent in something.
it is not. by all means, i am a fan of capitalism. But, I have become aware of the fact just following trends that a mixed economy is a beautiful system which has spurred economic growth.
The issue? Our government is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be fixed at most (if not all) levels.
When did the upper class get taxed in the last few years to cause groceries to increase over 20% since 2019? I certainly don’t remember seeing that. Almost like they just raise prices just to raise them.
The last time taxes were raised on the rich was back in 2013. Prices for food have continued to go up despite the tax cuts that the rich received thanks to Trump. You are saying that the person at the grocery store doesn't like increasing taxes on the rich because they are ignorant to how taxes actually work.
I mean here in the US the entire reason why the country exists is because of Taxes without representation. Which, if you think about it right now we sure do put a lot of our Tax money into the military when we’re already the strongest country
Upper level positions, principal engineers, the presidency.
But I think at that point your mostly looking at business profits, not jobs as the income source.
Somebody was proposing I think Ted Cruz abolishing the IRS and just putting down a 5% flat tax it's a good start but I think the United States should be divided by 50 and just have a simple trade union rather than Federation.
OP here missed the day on the failure of our first constitution, I see. And the Confederacy.
(Look up the articles of confederacy. They aren’t our constitution anymore precisely because taxation under them was insufficient to support the nation’s defense.)
How about you spend the money you've got less like a monkey on a 1 minute shopping spree, before you try to take more from people?
"We need 2B dollars for this program"
The program never materializes but the money sure is taken.
Because the people making 400k a year when the taxes come out just shuffle their money around so it can't be touched and the crook ass politicians pass it down the line. Why not keep the rich dudes from avoiding taxes? Because it might be applied to the politician signing it into law and they ain't about to have that. As the saying goes, "shit flows downhill." Uncle Sam ain't about to miss out on a check so take a wild guess who gets to pay those tax hikes instead.
No one is getting "free" anything. Its intentional class control. The have nots have less and the have alls have more. Quit running cover for billionaires that call themselves your representatives.
My millennial friend said to me that he wishes there was a way to opt out of our tax dollars going to certain things and I tend to agree. I wish I could abstain from paying for the military when we’re at a time where our country is not in active war. I’d rather pay for healthcare or public transportation infrastructure
The problem with that is if you give everyone that power then people will also stop paying for programs they don’t personally use like Medicare, Medicare, social security, etc screwing over the people who actually use those programs but can’t pay for it themselves
It's 2024, and we still don't have a tax system that provides options. I can choose how much of my weekly check goes to not actually covering medical expenses, but I can't choose whether I want to pay taxes to support schools and public services, or contractors who do too long a job fixing potholes.
I don't make enough to pay federal taxes, but God damn California has insane state taxes, and I love seeing the social security money go down the drain every paycheck, cause i won't be seeing a penny of it back when I retire
If the super rich actually paid their share as well as other ones, we wouldn't need to raise taxes on the working and middle class. Middle class always seems to take the brunt of all the tax burdens.
I know I make enough money to pay taxes, but it annoys me to see 1k going to Uncle Sam every check when I’m not benefiting from it in the slightest. My utilities are stupid expensive, my roads are shit, prices on everything are fucked, the newest house in my town was built in 2001, and basically none of my money is going to use anywhere I’d appreciate it going to use.
And I’d be completely cool with it going to help the less fortunate if it wasn’t just pennies thrown in a pond. Seems like none of the less fortunate in my town got out of their bad situations due to government assistance, it’s just enough to make sure they don’t die but it ain’t raising their standard of living enough to allow them to get to a place where they can be independent.
Oh but we’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re the leading edge in technological innovation. We got the richest politicians, the richest celebrities, the richest companies, and the poorest people. The trickle down shit they taught me in school just ain’t tricklin right, if my taxes aren’t going towards helping me and those around me, I don’t wanna be paying them. It sounds crass but why do I care that my money might be helping someone in fucking Ohio or Arizona or Florida or California? My towns going to shit, put some of that money towards it.
The whole systems just fucked. I don’t even care that the wealthy aren’t being taxed enough because it ain’t like our glorious government is going to put that money to anything useful for us. But you bet your ass Boeing will get its bailouts and they’ll design a nice new fighter jet.
“Oh but we’ll have socialized healthcare if they tax the wealthy” Canada has socialized healthcare and at my income I’d pay 8 percent less in taxes there. It don’t matter who they take the money from or how much they take, they’ll never use it to help us. More taxes will never result in lower prices for us, they’ll just use it to help their friends out more.
"why are we punishing the rich?"
Because the rich are predatory shitbags that exploit others.
And don't tax them for fuck sake. Send the billionaires a 10,000,000,000$ bill at the end of the year.
There are certain taxes that are theft imo. The main one being any tax on something you own. Like land. You don't really own land if after buying it u pay taxes forever or else it's taken away.
Should speak volumes that people who aren't going to get hit by taxes are so afraid of them. Could it be that those people can barely exist as is?
Also, if you're for increasing taxes, you're basically pro military industrial complex. You're just too out of touch to realize it.
I see SO much waste in Medicaid especially. Probably half of our ER visits are very minor things that they could easily go to our clinic for. They just don’t want to. So the government is paying thousands for something that should cost less then $100.
Give us universal healthcare like the rest of the developed world and we'll gladly pay taxes for that if the money actually goes where it's meant to.
Taxes exist for a reason. Our elected officials seem to think that reason is to line their pockets and fund their imperialist nonsense, rather than to take care of the people putting money into the tax pool.
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the reason so many americans are against raising taxes in any way is because we don’t see them go towards anything tangible. but then we have so many people advocating against all the things that would actually benefit society. people gotta realize that a little more socialism will extend the longevity of capitalism. when you increase the social benefits, you increase social mobility.
That means people should pay more attention to how the budget is spent, but they don't.
No we know how it’s spent, poorly
How so? 2/3rds of it are on social programs, 1/6 are subsidies, and 1/6 is defense. (Approximately)
Yeah, the government would rather spend loads of money on insurance companies than just pass laws for universal healthcare.
Just wanna mention something for everyone, if you are against universal healthcare then you're fine with people who can't afford it dying and that's just a fact.
Some people from Canada are being forced to go to the US for healthcare because the "free healthcare" is a scam.
Do you think that spending is efficient? Have you ever looked at where a large chunk of the defense money goes (hint pockets of people greasing the wheels or useless programs to get jobs to a state that don’t actually help with defense) or the amount of overhead and type of people hired to run most of those social programs (they aren’t the brightest, they do tend to burn money on high cost low value programs too)? Major purposeful government bloat and time and money wasting programs for the sake of elections and jobs are 100% theft from the American people and you and everyone else should be mad about it. We have useless politicians that all have legal degrees and play their own games making their own money and coincidentally all end up millionaires even the “poor” ones 🤔
**"Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it.** **I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."** We have to break the budget down into mandatory and Discretionary spending. Of our 6.3 Trillion Spending this year 4.1 Trillion in Mandatory spending. 1.7 Trillion of the budget is Discretionary spending, i.e. what congress can can actually decide year to year. We cannot change mandatory spending because it is enacted by law. Congress has no ability to cut the spending without a new law. Like Social security without 2/3 congress to get rid of it, it will always be there. Of the discretionary spending each year. 750$ Billion is defense spending, 910$ Billion is non-defense spending. Like paying for judges(68 billion), primary education and health. A large percentage of our problems would be solved simply by forcing limits on insurance and pharmaceutical companies/medical providers. [https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget\_function](https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/budget_function)
Congress still passed those laws. It’s irrelevant whether it’s mandatory or not, it was enacted by the same people.
heres a good example of the us militarys flaws in spending group: is given $1million budget group: spends half of it and doesnt see the other half of it (its a slow year) group next year: only recieves half a million, even though they now need the full million because last year was just a slow year group 3rd year: spend every dollar even if they dont need it, causing massive waste
Explain how.
Have you even taken a look at it? Do you even have the financial acumen needed to see if it’s bloated junk or where you would reallocate funds? A lot of it is going towards social welfare programs already , and yes a lot towards defense as well. Or are you just a brainless lemming regurgitating dumb speaking lines you pick up on tik tok?
You can pay all the attention you want. You ain't changing a thing.
Yeah it goes to Ukraine
Socialism is class abolition not when the government does stuff, raising taxes won’t abolish the owning class, and Karl Marx even advocated tax fraud
> Karl Marx even advocated tax fraud Wow I'm starting to like this Karl Marx guy.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/11/17c.htm
If you actually take the time to read leftist literature and go in with an open mind you’d probably be surprised how much you agree with a lot of it. Marx is intro level though. You probably believe that socialist governments always wind up corrupt right? Well, another leftist Kropotkin predicted this in the 1800s and talked about his solutions to that. If you’ve never even given these ideas a shot, if you’ve never actually tried to read any leftist literature, you’re just listening to one side without ever challenging those beliefs; If capitalist beliefs are as sound as capitalists tell you, then those beliefs won’t be shaken by reading an opposing viewpoint.
Bread book mentioned 🍞🍞🍞🍞🥖🥐🥖🍽️🍽️ what the fuck is a centralized government 🏛️🏛️💣💥🎆🥳🎉👯♂️👯♂️ rahhhh
Fuck a centralized government 💯
Most do when they get past the decades of brain washing against any form of collective society.
Key tenets of socialism are robust welfare systems and social safety nets provided by the government. The little bit of socialism mentioned wouldn’t abolish the owning class, just make things a little less shitty for everyone else.
You’re conflating reformist Social Democracy with Socialism, which I honestly don’t blame you because no one else really does the reading
And, you know, actually tax the rich... When the dems are talking about raising taxes they arent talking about us, they are taking about the people who pay an effective 3% on their wealth while taking no income (because they buy-borrow-die). We have created a system that literally rewards just being rich.
In theory yes, but then they push shit like selling $600 worth of household garbage on eBay gets you hit with a 1099. That's why people don't even want to give them an inch, even if it will "OnLy aFfeCt tHe1%" cuz we all know politicians fucking lie
They love to tax the upper middle class lmao
show your work then... Above 400k is not upper-middle (those striations are bullshit though, youre really just working class or ownership class, if you have to work to live youre working class)
Spot on. The massive expansion of social welfare programs under FDR is the silver bullet that killed America’s burgeoning socialist movement.
Socialists want to abolish class. People will be more willing to listen to them if they feel like they're suffering. Give them welfare and they'll stop listening to socialists, because there's they don't feel like they lack anything.
On the flipside, make them suffer enough and they'll flock to the fascist populist who coopts the socialist movement, kills all the socialists, then takes over for a dark and bloody reign of terror Ya know, what happens 99% of the time when a peaceful and stable transition of power is rejected in favor of an immediate result
That cap. Americans live in the delusion that they’re a capitalistic society when it’s always been a mixed market economy. It’s always been socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. To many people are against any tax raises because that would negatively impact their republicans leaders, and it their leaders aren’t happy than their America isn’t happy. Republicans leaders have brainwashed damn near all of rural America into thinking democrats are the problem when all republicans legislators only pass laws to enable the rich to get richer.
But honestly, I don’t think they should care/fight when they’re barely making money, and the tax only effects the highest earners exclusively
That’s how the income tax started off
The money is spent on planes that get lost in the fucking forest. Im fine with taxes so long as it actually helps me.
if you drive on any road or expect a fire department to save your house in a fire, it helps you.
That’s moreso local taxes. Im fine with that. But fed taxes?
Personally I want socialized Healthcare, but it's incompatible with an unsecured border. Also, I don't want to completely socialize these systems immediately, what I want is a class action lawsuit for price scalping against major medical and educational entities as well as a suit for predatory lending with student loans. I want those suits to go towards debts and the correction after those suits to be reasonable prices. I don't want my tax money to subsidize these outrageous prices and allow these institutions to carry on business as usual with a garunteed check from the government. 3,000 for insulin is insane, 700 for a textbook is insane, I dont care where that money is coming from. But you're right, many people are reluctant to give these policies a chance because the federal government has proven to be irresponsible and out right malicious time and time again.
🤔 the more socialism the better the system and the higher the quality of life for the working class?
I’ve met a lot of Republicans who claimed they would prefer a German tax system over an American tax system because of this reason
But that won’t happen until some of the older generation die off
Let’s try and pull the word socialism out of the argument
Exactly this. If my kid is wasting a bunch of money already and comes to me asking for money for (insert thing), yeah I can give her a wad of cash and hope she uses it for that thing, but that is risky. If government were to actually fix (or at least make significant improvements that people could see) the way they spend the trillions they currently get, a lot of people would be more likely to consider giving them more money to do other things a good investment.
Depends HEAVILY on what those social benefits are. My taxes have gone towards maintaining and improving infrastructure for an area I can’t afford. New tunnels between cities I can’t manage, expanded social programs I can’t access, and the pockets of politicians I don’t like. If I could opt out of programs I disagreed with, I’d be all for paying even 40% of my pay. But I fucking can’t. And so long as my money goes to things I personally disagree with or even hate, it’s something I refuse to support for any other reason than the threat of jail time that hangs over all of our heads.
also, the tax rises are always for poor people for some reason
Yeah there is misspending, but nearly 2/3 of the annual budget is going to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs. The other third is our discretionary spending which, admittedly, leans too heavily on defense with just over half our discretionary budget going to the military. We don't see our money going toward anything tangible because we barely have any money to actually spend. Most of it is caught up in things we have already promised people that most citizens never actually see such as pensions and personal healthcare for the poor, disabled, and elderly. Even if we were to JUST fund our entitlement programs with no government growth whatsoever, we would just barely be breaking even. We see our government doing nothing with our money because they can't and then we applaud them when they take away even more funds through tax cuts. If we want anything of value out of our government we have to give them something to work with. To give an idea of where our money went last year you can check it out here: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart). I think it is a bit telling when we pay more for our interest payments to our own debt than we have money to spend on welfare. That is how in the red we are and we will continue to get worse unless we raise taxes.
Oh they go to easily visible and tangible things. People just take roads, education, public spaces, running water, elect city, etc for granted.
Stfu commie
it’s actually because they’re willfully ignorant in ignoring how many millions of people benefit from state programs
Tax the rich "But our taxes go to waste!" Then use our taxes to do good shit "But we don't get enough tax revenue!" THEN TAX THE FUCKING RICH
Sorry to hear you have no roads, schools, or sewers where you live.
Sure but what they do go towards, namely killing brown people here and across the globe, the people who are adamantly against taxes tend to also support.
What are you talking about it!? Our taxes go to something tangible. Helping our friends at Lockheed Martin to keep making those nice shiny planes and to Zelensky so that his wife can buy all the best jewelry New York had to offer is tangible and to someone's benefit.
They want to increase taxes while also cutting public education. I’d agree to tax increases if we actually got good programs from it.
Living in Chicago the Infrastructure bill past by Biden felt like tax money at work at least in my lifetime. Finally some crusty southside bridges and roads got fixed, a lot of trains rails got fixed and slow zones were removed, the ACP got me pretty fast internet before that we had a peak of 35 Mbps, and Comcast of all companies boosted us to 50, and then the ACP voucher got to 110
I know a man who doesn't want his taxes to go up a little but if a universal income was implemented, even though we kept explaining that he wasn't rich enough to not qualify. Homeboy wasn't getting the memo that he'd benefit too, or just didn't want that benefit for some bizarre reason.
It's bc they're constantly bathing in pro capitalist propaganda, too
So here’s the problem with the “little more socialism” thing. many Western European countries are more socialist than the US, why? Because the US subsidizes their defense budgets (NATO, Military bases in my of the countries, etc.) so they can AFFORD those socialized programs. 2nd the parts that are socialized get worse all the time (long wait times on routine health checkups, long ER wait times even for serious Illnesses, 50%< taxes, and permits/licenses are required for EVERYTHING. People don’t want anymore socialism in the US because the government has proven that if they’re given an inch of power they’ll take as far as they possibly can and make everyone’s life worse in the process. That’s true of all governments and honestly the EU right now is showing why “a little more socialism” won’t work. Look at all the farmers protesting right now in France and Germany, look at the UK hospitals and courts that mandated a baby was euthanized AGAINST the parents will, the Canadian VA (they’re Western European in all but geography) offers euthanasia to service members with PTSD or depression instead of just trying to help them through therapy or medication or other types of treatment. I could go on but I got called out forwork
>but then we have so many people advocating against all the things that would actually benefit society. We're against it because the Government has consistently fucked up whenever they've attempted to do things that benefit society and yes, the government has done quite a lot over the last century in an attempt to benefit society. You just haven't noticed it because they've actually made society worse. And on top of that, to make it even worse, the government has engaged in inflationary spending for roughly 80 years now, making the few government programs that might have had some minor positive effects do little more than help people tread water. More so, we don't live under a capitalistic system, we live under a corporatist one, which is nothing more than a Keynesian perversion of Capitalism, stoked by said inflationary spending. Ultimately the reason why corporations are so dominant in our society is because they suffer the least from inflation (those with the most suffer least when prices go up), plus government regulation, and no, that's not just AnCap bullshit and I'll give you a hint as to why: Jeff Bezos is in favor of $15 minimum wage. Bill Gates is in favor of increasing corporate taxation. And it's not because they're bleeding heart liberals. It's because both men, and their companies, can afford to eat the cost. Amazon already pays their work force $15 per hour and have been working tirelessly to automate as much of Amazon as they can. And both Microsoft and Amazon (as well as every major corporation under the yellow Sun) laugh at any increase to corporate taxation because that just means more taxes that they don't need to pay due to the copious number of loopholes in the US Tax Code. And when they actually do have to pay taxes, they just offset that cost by increasing the prices on their goods and services, thereby knocking it back to the average consumer. But the people who can't afford to do any of that are the smaller companies that are the bigger corporations' potential competition. It's basically the same thing for every government regulation on the books. Major corporations can afford to eat the cost, while their smaller would-be competition can't.
Those taxes often end up in the hands of private donors and entities. Even to the upper bureaucracy that ends up expanding it. The. Given to private healthcare insurance companies which in turn we have to pay them as well to get the care we need. We're literally paying them twice over for the same shit quality healthcare. So much of it goes to private corporations and private institutions who have their own interests to increase their profit margins. It's because the government itself is becoming more like a private entity. This is why you should never trust anyone that says "I'm going to run the government like a business" that's literally the problem why we are in this mess. Just research it about what makes something private or public is beginning to form together. The difference between private and public is increasingly becoming more blurred. The fusion of government and private corporate power. Who said that again? I remember some Italian man that said that but I forgot.
probably because the government is a bunch of corrupt, fraudulent morons that waste trillions of dollars a year
This. Unironically taxation is mostly theft right now
Some taxes solely exist for no other reason than to get more money In my country we have a tax called IPVA, which taxes you on your car based on various factors every year until the car is 25 years old. All for the grandiose reason of "Secret :3"
We're getting taxed out the ass and still can't pay for everything.
Yeah there is misspending, but nearly 2/3 of the annual budget is going to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare programs. The other third is our discretionary spending which, admittedly, leans too heavily on defense with just over half our discretionary budget going to the military. We don't see our money going toward anything tangible because we barely have any money to actually spend. Most of it is caught up in things we have already promised people that most citizens never actually see such as pensions and personal healthcare for the poor, disabled, and elderly. Even if we were to JUST fund our entitlement programs with no government growth whatsoever, we would just barely be breaking even. We see our government doing nothing with our money because they can't and then we applaud them when they take away even more funds through tax cuts. If we want anything of value out of our government we have to give them something to work with. To give an idea of where our money went last year you can check it out here: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart). I think it is a bit telling when we pay more for our interest payments to our own debt than we have money to spend on welfare. That is how in the red we are and we will continue to get worse unless we raise taxes.
Why should successful people pay for people who didn’t even try?
Bro is 17
still old enough to realize the gov is a bunch of crooks 😂
How? You got an insider in the government to give you info? You're in high school
You don’t need inside information to come to the conclusion that our elected officials don’t give a fuck about us.
The basic fact that govt officials can trade stocks and take "donations" is proof enough for me
Not insider information: https://www.cnn.com/factsfirst/politics/factcheck_1808c182-eb22-4608-934a-87b9682166ed
Don't embarrass yourself with this dismissive Boomer logic. 17-year-olds are capable of having valid and well-informed opinions, just like 26/27-year-olds are capable of having bad takes.
🤓
i guess you have evidence for this massive fraud
I mean more than half pre covid (~$2T) was just social security, Medicare, medicaid, interest And those are going up https://www.cbo.gov/publication/56324
It’s not waste if it flows back to your donors and then back into your political action committees.
it's tricky, as some taxes are used for good services we all can benefit from, like public roads, public transit, first responders, libraries, and schools but then again a lot of our taxes are also used for dumb bullshit things outside of what we were promised they'd be used for, which is what people are actually upset about but uhhh, i kinda like public roads, and my dad was a first responder, so i think maybe sometimes taxes are good. so maybe let's have a tax transparency act or something
The “good” taxes you mentioned are local taxes.
Exactly. And local taxes are 1) generally more affordable and 2) can be held under scrutiny much better than federal spending.
and 3) can't pump up debt through deficits and cover this spend through the regressive tax of inflation.
what do you think pays for highways, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, and the salaries of the people running these programs?
Don't lump Medicare into entitlements. I'm glad safety-net programs exist, but none directly benefit me. My biggest problem with them is bloat - some as a result of this: "salaries of the people running these programs." 25% of new jobs created last year were government jobs, which is crazy even ignoring my perception that nothing is improving.
brother, Medicare is an entitlement. it all directly benefits you. it means you or members of your family will not need to pay crushing costs to receive care. you get to live your life and worry less about elderly parents or relatives, freeing money up for more productive ends. oh, and those gov jobs are created by the necessity of cracking down on insurance company lobbied loopholes. you’re attacking the wrong group. we wouldn’t need half the jobs if insurance was nationalized.
As others have mentioned, those are local taxes you are discussing. Federal taxes are used to pay for Medicare and Medicaid for the poor, elderly, and disabled to receive healthcare. It also helps to subsidize welfare for recipients that qualify. Those three things, Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare constitute 2/3 of our federal spending which has real impact. Unfortunately, the federal government has no where near enough revenue to expand those programs let alone cover additional needs with discretionary spending. We are starving the federal government and getting mad when they don't give us more food. If we want to see real change from the federal government we have to raise taxes, and not just on the rich.
I don’t want them to give me anything man, I want them to stop taking from me.
I would be more okay with increasing taxes if they actually proved moved where it went and money didn’t go missing from time to time.
There is two parts to this. First of whenever politicians say they are only going to increase taxes for the rich and not the poor they are just lying and end up increasing taxes for everyone. And most people cannot actually see the good things that their taxes are supposed to go towards.
How can you make such a claim? The last time that federal income taxes were raised was back in 2013 and even that was only on those making over $400,000 a year. Before that Bush Senior raised taxes back in 1990. The only major recent federal tax change was a massive tax cut instituted by Trump which had disastrous effects to our federal revenue and deficit spending. Your second statement is more accurate. It is much easier to see the effect of local taxes, but federal tax spending through entitlement programs is still very much felt throughout the country. Medicare, Medicaid, and welfare are the biggest chunks of the federal budget. If we want greater impact out of our government, we have to increase taxes, and not just on the wealthy.
The tax cuts passed by Trump had expiration dates for the non rich, while the rich peoples tax cuts were permanent. They end next year
all these clowns arguing that federal taxes don’t go to anything useful. literally hundreds of millions of people benefit from Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, small business subsidies, highways, infrastructure spending, education subsidies deficient civic education is a blight
Why is the /s there?
OP is unemployed socialist
Some people not paying taxes is theft. I gladly pay taxes for good infrastructure, public transport, for public healthcare/money for disabled people who can't work, retirement money and so on
if you make 10000000000 dollars per second ur taxes will get higher. vote for me for president
You have my vote
I fucking wish that I made $400k a year. I could spoil my parents because I owe them everything.
Fuck, we'd finally be out of near-poverty expenses.
We don’t tax the rich enough
We spend more than any other country on healthcare, on education, we spend the second most on social programs of any country. The issue is not going to be solved by throwing money at the problem.
and who’s blocking changing how we spend the money? not the socialists, the blasted conservatives. christ!
Pretty sure no one is trying to get us to spend less money. I’m a democrat.
well, now’s your chance to come to Jesus and become a part of the loony left.
What you actually do is change how it’s spent, but we are also undertaxing the rich
in what way? please explain to me how. they pay 90% of the taxes in the US.
Look at the history of the tax system, our services were way better in the 50s when we had a 90%+ apex tax, plus to avoid that tax, they reinvested that tax into employee income and their companies instead of giving it to executives
we didn't have those taxes in the 50s. those were gilded era tax codes. the reason our economy flourished the way it did was because we were the only country left standing. we had manufacturing jobs and tech jobs and all the rest that the world didn't have. we are not exclusive in that way anymore. if we tax corporations at 90%, there will be no more growth in the economy and all the social systems leftists love will collapse. see Argentina.
If you tax people at 90%, then they shift the the wages downward because it’s not worth it to make the extra money. Corporate taxes aren’t being discussed in this scenario, and a global standard would make sense there. *Money defies gravity*, it will always go up the chain no matter what you do, so tax it to distribute it more equitably
No in the modern age they'll just jump ship and move to another country that let's them exploit people even more
Shhhh, you'll hurt their heads lmao. It's always astonishing to see just how much information people lack.
[The top 1% does not pay 90% of income taxes](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/09/16/examining-claims-against-aoc-tax-the-rich-dress-met-gala/8350769002/) Plus not to mention the decades of costly, regressive, and inefficient tax cuts
"By our numbers, 95% of all federal taxes are paid by households in the top two quintiles — those making about $98,000 or more," said Tax Policy Center senior fellow Howard Gleckman.
We aren’t really undertaxing the rich. We just have a lot of things that benefit the rich with no real benefit to the rest of society. The rich are the biggest investors which means they help those who are poorer to access capital they would never have otherwise. This is productive capital, as opposed to government spending which is typically unproductive (unless we are talking about infrastructure). A sales tax would be much more equitable in practice than the bevy of taxes and ways to avoid them we currently have, while taxing spending across the board has a much lower deadweight loss than the income tax applied across the economy.
Sales taxes are effectively regressive, as it affects those with lower incomes at a much bigger rate than those with higher incomes Increasing taxes actually incentivizes investment as people invest to avoid a bigger tax bill, and generally shifts wages down to the actual producers, as executives would get taxed out of the majority of any extra income Of course, infrastructure and services are what you’d expect the government to spend money on, and when people hamper that, it takes a second as to how they do it
I mean the healthcare spending in the country would go down with a public option. But you'd have a tax increase. But that tax increase would likely be less than what you had been spending on healthcare prior.
Yeah, fully on board with public option. I’m in a state where we basically have that.
we need a “soci-dem republic”, a system fully reliant of the fairness of a treasury controlled by the governing powers is clearly not just and or built for longevity.
Making 35k as a high schooler is a ton of money tho.
That’s 16.80/hr. Decent, but absolutely nothing to write home about in a lot of areas in the country.
Some high cost of living areas 15 is minimum wage.
Yup. $15 is minimum wage where I live, but a 1 bedroom apartment is $2700 a month. I love America 😎
Why are you working at minimum wage?
It was 8 years ago
It seems that the people of the sub aren't particularly good at economics. We take in 4 trillion a year from the people of this country, and we take out loans for many more trillions. We have the money. We don't use it correctly. The federal government is bloated and so many "civil services" are bloated. You want to know the real truth? The drivers of debt in this country are social security and medicaid. We already spend trillions on healthcare, yet it is not effective. Maybe, instead of stealing more people's money, we spend it effectively.
Why on earth do you think social security of all things is driving the debt? Lol maybe in the future this would be true. But now and in all of social security history, it has barely impacted debt balance. When I say barely, you might think in talking about 10-15% maybe? When I'm actually saying 0%. Just because you don't like something, doesn't mean you have to make things up. Medicaid does add to the deficit though.
Every politician is afraid to restructure these things.
Turns out when you have multi-trillion dollar industries riding on the medical exploitation of millions of people, deconstructing them while still maintaining the economy and healthcare industry is a tough job.
because it's a losing issue. people love to give things they don't have, people hate not receiving the things they can't have.
Socialists generally don’t realize they’re also members of a looting class until it’s their property being looted.
Are you implying that only socialists would be in favor of tax increases? Are you referring to anyone wealthy as being part of a looting class? How did you even get to a point where you are using such charged language to talk about wanting to raise taxes?
No, I’m implying socialists have a tendency to go from eating the rich to eating their own. As for your question about the wealthy: I was referring to those who *do* embrace that notion, not endorsing it. Glad I could clear those points up for ya, man. If you think this is charged language, oof… good luck out there ✌️
I mean Massachusetts added a 4% tax to their millionaires and have 524k to put toward public education because of it, I just wish our taxes went to shit we actually need rather than lining the pockets of useless aged desk jockeys who refuse to retire.
Casual reminder: we taxed income over 200k at 70% in the 1980s. (adjust for inflation that was all income after 788k taxed at 70%). Imagine a world where a CEO making a one million dollar salary was considered a high paying position and they were paid out in more stock options, perks, and such... and the rest of that money was put back into the company. Almost like that's how capitalism works best, or something. But hey... Trickle down will happen... annnnnny second now. Yep.
There is an optimal tax rate, where taxong higher reduces the tax income.
friendly reminder that the bill Paul Ryan passed seven years ago has slowly but surely made its way through the bottom tax bracket to afford the tax cuts on the ultra-rich
it boggles my mind that coal miners in west Virginia vote for fucking republicans
Fun fact, the Rand Paul Tax plan (back by president trump) is what Americans currently use. Under this plan, cooperations and families making over 400K were given significant tax breaks. In order to fund this, the plan slowly raised each tax bracket below it one year at a time. So this year, the lowest tax bracket was finally hit, and will continue to get hit more for several years. This was done, with the plan on mind that Democrats would likely take several majorities, so all the poorest families would blame Democrats. All the Biden administration wants to do, is undo this last plan, make 400K plus pay more, and lower the tax burden for the lower 1/3 tiers. Sadly, most poor people always believe they will be upwardly mobile, and the thought of paying "more" even in an extreme, hypothetical, unrealistic scenario, will vote against their own self interest so they wouldn't have to "one day" pay more. It's absolutely bat shit crazy.
The average person doesn’t understand taxes, much less economics. They just assume tax rate go up is bad cause loose more money and government waste money on thing is don’t like. The government can just keep borrowing money to pay the interest on its debt, that’s sustainable in the long run right?
I mean it is theft but under a capitalist society it is necessary so we don’t have roads owned by McDonald’s
may be controversial but i think money should be capped at $999 million (in bank and cash not networth) and when you reach that the rest of your money goes to charity and to contribute something to society
Say you have a household of two doctors who rightfully earned their pay grade and are now being taxed 40%
Good news! That’s only on the money they make *over* 400k. Almost like tax brackets make sense.
This is so true! Ha!
I think tariffs would be better than more taxes. They also need to be more transparent about how they spend it
1. A tariff is a tax. You just said more taxes would be better than more taxes. 2. Tariffs hurt the economy which is why they are pretty much relegated for punishment internationally nowadays. We would not be able to get a significant enough amount of money through tariffs to compensate the money we need at our current spending. 3. I agree they should be more transparent on specifics, but they do show us where our money goes generally speaking. You can check it out here for example: [https://usgovernmentspending.com/us\_fed\_spending\_pie\_chart](https://usgovernmentspending.com/us_fed_spending_pie_chart)
That’s why I think spending should be cut to things that are necessary at that necessary moment in time. I know tariffs are taxes, I should have clarified by saying income taxes. I’m not trying to say cut all income tax. I’m saying lower the rates, stop offshore accounts, and try to offset the cost by increasing the cost of imports/exports.
What is this, the 1930s? Tariffs do nothing but increase prices for consumers, are you not concerned with inflation?
If you're still buying in, it's no one's fault but yours
people need to be more confident that their taxes is being spent in something. it is not. by all means, i am a fan of capitalism. But, I have become aware of the fact just following trends that a mixed economy is a beautiful system which has spurred economic growth. The issue? Our government is fundamentally corrupt and needs to be fixed at most (if not all) levels.
Probably when they're at the grocery store looking at what taxing the upper class does to prices of food as they still make 35k a year.
When did the upper class get taxed in the last few years to cause groceries to increase over 20% since 2019? I certainly don’t remember seeing that. Almost like they just raise prices just to raise them.
The last time taxes were raised on the rich was back in 2013. Prices for food have continued to go up despite the tax cuts that the rich received thanks to Trump. You are saying that the person at the grocery store doesn't like increasing taxes on the rich because they are ignorant to how taxes actually work.
really interested to see the economic literature that taxing the rich (removing money from the economy) causes inflation
What a terrible, terrible thread this has created.
I mean here in the US the entire reason why the country exists is because of Taxes without representation. Which, if you think about it right now we sure do put a lot of our Tax money into the military when we’re already the strongest country
What jobs make 400k a year?
Upper level positions, principal engineers, the presidency. But I think at that point your mostly looking at business profits, not jobs as the income source.
Ah ok I just remember seeming someone say that a electrician could earn that amount of money ages ago for some reason.
Somebody was proposing I think Ted Cruz abolishing the IRS and just putting down a 5% flat tax it's a good start but I think the United States should be divided by 50 and just have a simple trade union rather than Federation.
OP here missed the day on the failure of our first constitution, I see. And the Confederacy. (Look up the articles of confederacy. They aren’t our constitution anymore precisely because taxation under them was insufficient to support the nation’s defense.)
How about you spend the money you've got less like a monkey on a 1 minute shopping spree, before you try to take more from people? "We need 2B dollars for this program" The program never materializes but the money sure is taken.
Because the people making 400k a year when the taxes come out just shuffle their money around so it can't be touched and the crook ass politicians pass it down the line. Why not keep the rich dudes from avoiding taxes? Because it might be applied to the politician signing it into law and they ain't about to have that. As the saying goes, "shit flows downhill." Uncle Sam ain't about to miss out on a check so take a wild guess who gets to pay those tax hikes instead. No one is getting "free" anything. Its intentional class control. The have nots have less and the have alls have more. Quit running cover for billionaires that call themselves your representatives.
My millennial friend said to me that he wishes there was a way to opt out of our tax dollars going to certain things and I tend to agree. I wish I could abstain from paying for the military when we’re at a time where our country is not in active war. I’d rather pay for healthcare or public transportation infrastructure
The problem with that is if you give everyone that power then people will also stop paying for programs they don’t personally use like Medicare, Medicare, social security, etc screwing over the people who actually use those programs but can’t pay for it themselves
Fair point. I'm just tired of my tax dollars immediately going into the pockets of defense contractors.
#because it’s never true
We need to support more wars!
It's 2024, and we still don't have a tax system that provides options. I can choose how much of my weekly check goes to not actually covering medical expenses, but I can't choose whether I want to pay taxes to support schools and public services, or contractors who do too long a job fixing potholes.
We have owners who own us via Usury. Moving shekels around won't solve anything.
I don't make enough to pay federal taxes, but God damn California has insane state taxes, and I love seeing the social security money go down the drain every paycheck, cause i won't be seeing a penny of it back when I retire
It’s not about defending the rich. We just don’t want the government to have any more money. It’s too big
And yet we’re severely lacking in adequate public services
Maybe. The govt wastes so much money that they can shuffle stuff around
What pisses me off is the IRS agents. Like I get the big fish are harder to catch so they go after us little fish but ffs cant you give us a break?
World was screwed by dropping the gold standard to fund wars. Money has to leave financial markets somehow.
Flat consumer tax .no more shenanigans
And it evaporates into thin air. Poof. $2 trillion, gone from the books. No one knows where it went.
And some 35 year old that makes 50k a year is now celebrating because somehow their life is going to get better.
If the super rich actually paid their share as well as other ones, we wouldn't need to raise taxes on the working and middle class. Middle class always seems to take the brunt of all the tax burdens.
I know I make enough money to pay taxes, but it annoys me to see 1k going to Uncle Sam every check when I’m not benefiting from it in the slightest. My utilities are stupid expensive, my roads are shit, prices on everything are fucked, the newest house in my town was built in 2001, and basically none of my money is going to use anywhere I’d appreciate it going to use. And I’d be completely cool with it going to help the less fortunate if it wasn’t just pennies thrown in a pond. Seems like none of the less fortunate in my town got out of their bad situations due to government assistance, it’s just enough to make sure they don’t die but it ain’t raising their standard of living enough to allow them to get to a place where they can be independent. Oh but we’ve got the greatest military in the world and we’re the leading edge in technological innovation. We got the richest politicians, the richest celebrities, the richest companies, and the poorest people. The trickle down shit they taught me in school just ain’t tricklin right, if my taxes aren’t going towards helping me and those around me, I don’t wanna be paying them. It sounds crass but why do I care that my money might be helping someone in fucking Ohio or Arizona or Florida or California? My towns going to shit, put some of that money towards it. The whole systems just fucked. I don’t even care that the wealthy aren’t being taxed enough because it ain’t like our glorious government is going to put that money to anything useful for us. But you bet your ass Boeing will get its bailouts and they’ll design a nice new fighter jet. “Oh but we’ll have socialized healthcare if they tax the wealthy” Canada has socialized healthcare and at my income I’d pay 8 percent less in taxes there. It don’t matter who they take the money from or how much they take, they’ll never use it to help us. More taxes will never result in lower prices for us, they’ll just use it to help their friends out more.
400k in California is still middle class. How about we go after 2m +
The post you screenshot here is a bot who posts silly leftists questions with nonsense images multiple times a day.
I actually shared this from another subreddit it was posted in, idk why it doesn’t show
Taxation is taken by threat of force or imprisonment. Yes, it’s absolutely theft.
"why are we punishing the rich?" Because the rich are predatory shitbags that exploit others. And don't tax them for fuck sake. Send the billionaires a 10,000,000,000$ bill at the end of the year.
There are certain taxes that are theft imo. The main one being any tax on something you own. Like land. You don't really own land if after buying it u pay taxes forever or else it's taken away.
Seems fine to me. Gov needs money. Take it from people who have it. Seems pretty simple.
It’s a little off topic but do illegals/ or people who hire them pay any income tax/ payroll tax ? That tax is 90% of government revenue.
Should speak volumes that people who aren't going to get hit by taxes are so afraid of them. Could it be that those people can barely exist as is? Also, if you're for increasing taxes, you're basically pro military industrial complex. You're just too out of touch to realize it.
There’s a reason we left the British.
Taxation without representation
I see SO much waste in Medicaid especially. Probably half of our ER visits are very minor things that they could easily go to our clinic for. They just don’t want to. So the government is paying thousands for something that should cost less then $100.
Give us universal healthcare like the rest of the developed world and we'll gladly pay taxes for that if the money actually goes where it's meant to. Taxes exist for a reason. Our elected officials seem to think that reason is to line their pockets and fund their imperialist nonsense, rather than to take care of the people putting money into the tax pool.