Thanks for the link to my post. Iāve studied wealth taxes ever since I saw my previously honest French friends turn into determined evaders, moving money from country to country, ending up living in Costa Rica. I wish I could still visit them in Paris!
The "problem" with these "discussions" is: 1. taxes donĀ“t land at the needy but at "The State".
2. If anyone would talk about "The" immigrants, "The" Gays, "The" Heterosexuals, "The" Black People", "The" Chinese, "The" politicians, "The" Jews etc. like AOC & Co. "talk" about "The" Rich, many of them would land in jail and/or be sentenced for discriminative talk, favourite "crime" of "Leftists" for pointing fingers at "others" forgetting to point at themselves.
They blatantly and intolerably violate all the "values" they otherwise profess, revealing just how hollow, deceitful and unelectable nothingness they are.
If you want "Leftists" rightfully in jail, youĀ“re NOT against "equality" or helping the crippled and the needy, but for finally gaining a clear sight on who needs help and how.
Because "the" Needy donĀ“t exist, just as less as "The" Rich donĀ“t exist.
I know a lot of "rich" peopleāsome are unbearable and I could constantly punch them in the face, others are among the best people I know.
The same goes for "poor" people. For "women". For "Jews". For "gay people". For "Black people". "For 'whites', "yellow", "brown" and so on.
And so on.
As long as anyone is allowed and wants to talk about anyone labeled as "Them" the way AOC & Co. talk about "The Rich," they prove that what they preachā "equality" and the RIGHT NOT to be "equal," to not give a damn SHIT about "equality" ā, is neither represented nor meant seriously by them, but is merely deceitful rhetoric to lure "voters."
Exactly the same crap as all of AOC & Co.'s "competitors."
We donāt have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Every blue state and city has high taxes and record budgets. Yet the quality of public services keeps declining. The amount of fraud and waste is staggering. Until that is fixed, raising taxes will not improve anything except making crony commissars rich.
Socialist Mayor Zohran has proposed a property tax hike to cover his record $127 billion budget. Based on annual revenue, NYC would be the 32nd largest corporation in America between NVIDIA and Goldman Sachs. The city has ~300,000 employees, which is near the top 10 with General Electric. New York stateās $260 billion budget does not include NYC and would be #12, between JP Morgan and Costco. The largest NYC budget item is education at ~$50 billion. That equates to ~$40,000 per year per student in a school system where most canāt read or do math at grade level. It would be the 90th largest corporation by revenue between Nike and Deere.
The 'poor people' never get the money directly in their hand. It's always paid to community groups and arts clubs and crap like that. Most of the 'poor people' dont sign up for the drama group or the art class or the patronizing "how to cook healthy meals classes' so they get no benefit from all this community funding. The few who are clued up enough to sign up to knitting classes or that drama group etc they find ways to get into the funding (cos they're the clever ones). It's so rubbish.
Most people agree that poor people rarely get money or other forms of help directly when it is dispensed by politicians because most politicians see politics as a wonder job that helps them self fund themselves into higher levels of unearned income. But in India during the pandemic, Prime Minister Modi had his government establish bank accounts for the poor linked directly to them by issuing them an identity card with their individual biodata contained on it. It is described in this Google description: The primary identity card used for bank accounts by poor people in India is the Aadhaar card, a 12-digit unique biometric ID issued by the UIDAI. It acts as a foundational document for opening bank accounts (specifically under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana - PMJDY) and enables direct benefit transfers (DBT) for government subsidies. If something like this could be done in Western nations? It is difficult because so many corrupt people other than the poor want to steal the funds subsidies for themselves which either wipes it out or drives the costs of such subsidies way up with no way to for the government to reclaim the lost funds. Human greed short circuits the helping hand. Private funding for poor people requires more comprehensive documentation proof of need in order to preserve the funding to be available. It not unlike a Thanksgiving dinner at a church or food pantry where 5 to 10 people with 5 or 6 bags take most all the food or as much as they can carry out the door to a waiting car, leaving nothing for large numbers of poor people who arrived too late for any food to be left over for them.
One way to make $5 million go a long way is to live small. But people who live small are pitied rather than celebrated because they continually short change themselves to last longer by living slower. John Robbins, son of Baskin-Robbins co-founder Irv Robbins, famously walked away from a,multi-billion dollar ice cream inheritance in the 1960s to live a simple, conscious life. He embraced a plant-based lifestyle, living in a small cabin and advocating for health and sustainability. Despite later losing his savings to Bernie Madoff, he continued to promote conscious, frugal living.
I am not suggesting that the answer for being born into wealth is to go acetic like John Robbins who probably felt guilty for his father's success. Everyone is gifted in different ways and it seems one of the rarer gifts is being born into wealth. Although it can be a curse if one does not have a good purpose. And this is personal decision, but just as someone is gifted with wealth sometimes they feel less guilty for that gift if they are able to gift others in different ways from having been gifted with wealth. But it's a matter of personal choice. Also it's personal choice for how much someone who has been gifted believe they should be taxed. There are all sorts of gifts people may have been given and the difficulty is to uncover them and make good choices to make full and beneficial use of them for oneself or for others. One choice is to fund comprehensive research to search for a cure for a disease. I think it is useless for AOC or Mandami to punish those who are wealthy. God does not favor punishing them. So why can't Socialist activists appreciate all the benefits over centuries that wealthy people have generously provided although that is always subject to fierce debate along with everything else!
Sounds like my kind of person and yes,you don't get seen as "winning" you get perceived as a "loser" or as having lost or maybe not having it in the first place. One thing I learned is that most poor people want and aspire to money because they understandably and justifiably don't like being poor so if you choose a simple lifestyle..well no one likes their ideals being dissed. And what they respect and admire being ignored.
This is thoughtful and smart. A word of caution about unions. I agree that the absence of strong unions is an important factor in income disparity, but there is a long list of reasons why the influence of unions in the U.S. has declined from where it was to what it is. The most prominent of those reasons is globalization, which hasnāt gone away. At the same time, despite globalization, there are countries where unions are far more successful (e.g., Germany). Maybe we could import an idea or two that would be doable and practical in the American system. Maybe. (Is there a tariff on importing ideas? Weād have to consider that in our calculations.)
Itās wonderful just to get people talking this much about taxes! I think these are the kinds of conversation that help us all understand one another as well as our collective needs and concerns. These are the conversation that should be informing tax reforms. Substack public hearing events!
Once again I learned a lot about the US David, so thank you. I had not known that different states in the US could set the labour rates so low, or as they please, to create tax situations to attract the wealthy to go there. And there is no national rates.
Its just wrong that people cannot afford even low end, affordable housing, despite working what would be seen as a 'decent' job once upon a time. And this is also the case in the UK and Spain, where I now live. Especially for those who have studied for so long and with student loans etc. Even for a couple. Mind you, in the UK there are not the homes to buy or rent anyway now.
I was shocked to hear what the minimum wage is there! I thought id would be much higher. Currently it has been raised to 9.26-9.55ā¬ per hour here, which buys nothing really after 40 hours a week. And they wonder why there is still so much black money here! My daughter is a corporate manager for Marks and Spencer in the UK, where national minimum wage is Ā£12.71 this year and they exceed this for their shop workers but are planning to raise it to Ā£13+ soon rather than gives bonuses and wage increase to the management levels which is sound practise for all the reasons you mentioned.
I can't comment on wealth taxes for the wealthy but I honestly think if governments really spoke to, and involved people like yourself and Allison etc, around policy making for all taxes and real humans had a proper say, it could all be so much fairer for everyone. And I just have to say, I think you are such a nice man David.
Thanks Sally. On the minimum wage, the Federal rate Iis the lowest that all 50 states have to meet, but many states and cities have far higher minimum wages. The state with the higher minimums tend to be the ones on the coasts like California and New York where the cost of living is higher as are taxes and social benefits.
I just read an article in the WSJ about female billionaires, and Alice Walton is at number one, with something like $138 BILLION DOLLARS. I don't care how many art museums she opens, many of her employees don't have health care because Wal Mart deliberately schedules them under the hours they need to qualify. A few years ago there was an article about a Wal Mart store running a food drive... for its own employees. Her siblings also have the same amount of billions.
At what point does enough become enough? How can they excuse treating their employees poorly (in some areas, Wal Mart is the largest employer, so please don't say "work somewhere else")? Terrible people.
Can people stop shopping there? Not if it's the only store in town maybe. In the UK our succesive political administrations for the last 45 years have been slowly eroding our UK culture with the aim to USA it,but only all the bad bits.
You can't discuss tax policy without recognizing that it is a political problem. When I taught my class in critical thinking, I opened by saying, "We're not here to discuss what should be. We all know what should be. We're here to discuss what is." Meanginful tax reform is not a question of finding the right formula, but rather finding a way to get the formula enacted over the objections of those who will pour millions of dollars and serious political muscle into ensuring that it is not enacted. This goes beyond buying off legisators--there is perhaps the bigger problem of the propaganda foisted on those who would most benefit. Scream "socialism," for example, and true health care reform is doomed. Talk about "death taxes," and the rich get to give away a ridiculous amount of wealth tax free, while the working class, who will never meet the trigger level, are conned into thinking they are protecting democracy. Income inequality doesn't happen by accident. It is only during those rare periods when public anger actually boils over that anything is done. Otherwise the Wall Street Journal can keep up their stream of smug editorials about why a grossly unfair tax system is good for America.
True, Larry. "Death Tax" was a brilliant piece of political marketing. The political barriers are high although we may be reaching a point, thanks in part to this administration, where anger does boil over. And Sanders and AOC do the political effort no favors because they fit into the leftist narrative and care more about their images than doing real work.
I'm not sure about the first. But, David, wow, you are a true capitalist at heart. Say what you want about Bernie's and AOC's policies, but they are NOT fake. This isn't about image, but sincerely held beliefs. You can criticize them for being naive (I do)...as they would similarly criticize you...but spend a little time studying Bernie's record as mayor of Burlington and you won't call him self-serving. You had the same criticism of Mamdani. Sorry, but given your upbringing, I don't think you are qualified to judge their motives.
Mamdani has never demonstrated one scintilla of antisemitism. He has lived around Jews most of his life. What he has stressed is opposition to Israel's behavior in Gaza and the Netayahu governments encouraging a policy that is just short of apartheid...if it is short of. I cannot understand why American Jews refuse to acknowledge that the supposed explosion of antisemitism has an eerie correlation to Israel's wanton destruction in Gaza, which went way beyong its supposed military objectives. You can equate Israel and judaism politically if you want, but that cuts two ways. As for Bernie and AOC, yup, their ideas have no chance of adoption now, but neither did social security, gay marriage, equal voting rights, or all sorts of other ideas that were outside the political boundaries, until they weren't. Medicare for all, for example, may be a non-starter, but a national single-payer health care system may not be.
Good point. Last year at the time when Inheritance Tax was IN THE NEWS radio phone ins were packed with angry callers in whose estates ie house plus personal goods wont come anywhere near IT level that is if the care home hasn't claimed it for payment of their bills. Just the idea panics people but the owners of Stately Homes and Mansions will have their property registered in such a way that it's tax liability is negligible.
Social Security is our biggest federal budget item. A lot of people aren't relying on those checks. My parents, for example, were public school employees, not rich by any means, but their retirement pensions meant Social Security wasn't critical. It seems SS should be means-tested, but I guess that makes it an entitlement and so that'll never fly.
I donāt understand how/why people who get pensions also get SS? Honest question. Agree that many wealthy people donāt rely on SS to live. Yet they did pay into itā¦ so do they opt out? Medicare is based on income however, my hubby just went on and due to IRMA pays nearly $800 a month for his share. I am 62 and pay 1500 a month for individual insuranceā¦. Now thatās a problem we need to fix!
For those advocating means testing, the carrot for outsized contributions to SS was a diminishing return but a return NTL on those contributions. Deciding after said contributions and corresponding plans made that the contract needs modifications is a violation of said contract. I know that taxpaying citizens contributing their earnings from their labor, not their investments can join the list of those whose treaties/covenants have been reneged on by the US government but if you're looking for people to throw under the bus there are bigger targets out there.
Bernie used to rant against Millionaires and Billionaires until HE became a Millionaire around 2020 and then he switched to only Billionaires. How convenient.
Well, there is this thing called inflation, which means that a million dollars today is worth far, far less than it was sixty years ago when he first started working in politics.
Nowadays, we have some billionaires competing to be the first trillionaire and since the top ten richest people in the world have a combined total of 1.8 **trillion** dollarsā¦
Wrong. Inflation is always continuously eating away, but the recent large increases started after 2020, his earnings from book sales made his annual income >= 1 MM$ post his 2016 Presidential run. So his rhetoric shifted BEFORE the 2020s inflation increase.
I suppose the fact that he first started attacking the millionaires in the 1960s, one million dollars was the equivalent of ten million dollars today, doesnāt count?
That is six decades of inflation including the double digit inflation of the Volcker years.
A million dollars hasnāt been real money for some decades now.
Well your final statement is correct, but that it seems more than coincidence that Bernie suddenly dropped the Millionaire schtick the minute he became oneā¦.
Itās hard to get on board with more taxes when there is so much fraud. I am a resident in a blue highly taxed state (IL) - even so, the state is broke due to the pension crisis, people leaving, etc. Our property taxes are among the highest in the nation and much of it goes to fund public schools - which are failing miserably.. Iād love for my taxes to be used to help the actual needy and not towards fraud and programs that basically create jobs but donāt solve problemsā¦ as for AOC, hard passā¦ how rich is she now and how much does she pay in taxes?
it's really hard to know how much is lost to fraud. Even harder now since the trump Administration fired so many of the Inspector Generals whose job it was to investigate fraud.
Sure, cutting fraud is always good as is making govt. more efficient. But those are not substitutes for the additional revenues that the Federal govt. needs.
It strikes me as the essence of fraudulent to fire the people whose jobs it is/was to investigate and root out fraud- sounds like unserious leadership.
But now heās appointed Vance to be the fraud czar. Not sure how this plays with the other side of the aisleā¦ but maybe this will be DOGE 2.0? Halfway said in jest, but after whatās happened in MN and is also happening in other states, something needs to be done.
As a Minnesotan, yes the particular fraud that Trump has co opted as a scandal was bad. It was also already being prosecuted before Trump seized it as a way to punish Minnesota. Mostly because of Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar, of course. And anti Somali racism. And then the lead US Attorney for MN and many others in the office quit as well, and they were the ones actually doing the prosecuting work, because Trump wanted them to investigate Renee Good's wife!
I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point. Fraud is bad, taking away federal funds to punish Minnesota and sending masked agents in to detain 5 year olds and kill American citizens is bad.
Great, informative post.
Additionally, let Allison know - I love her pizza š shirt!
Thank you!! Iām a great pizza lover, so I thought it was an appropriate sweater to have :)
Well done, David. However, HiZzoner has a budget to balance and a Daddy to please! Both are imperatives.
Thanks for the link to my post. Iāve studied wealth taxes ever since I saw my previously honest French friends turn into determined evaders, moving money from country to country, ending up living in Costa Rica. I wish I could still visit them in Paris!
Moving to a retirement friendly place is ideal if one can do that. š
š¤£š¤£šš
The "problem" with these "discussions" is: 1. taxes donĀ“t land at the needy but at "The State".
2. If anyone would talk about "The" immigrants, "The" Gays, "The" Heterosexuals, "The" Black People", "The" Chinese, "The" politicians, "The" Jews etc. like AOC & Co. "talk" about "The" Rich, many of them would land in jail and/or be sentenced for discriminative talk, favourite "crime" of "Leftists" for pointing fingers at "others" forgetting to point at themselves.
They blatantly and intolerably violate all the "values" they otherwise profess, revealing just how hollow, deceitful and unelectable nothingness they are.
If you want "Leftists" rightfully in jail, youĀ“re NOT against "equality" or helping the crippled and the needy, but for finally gaining a clear sight on who needs help and how.
Because "the" Needy donĀ“t exist, just as less as "The" Rich donĀ“t exist.
I know a lot of "rich" peopleāsome are unbearable and I could constantly punch them in the face, others are among the best people I know.
The same goes for "poor" people. For "women". For "Jews". For "gay people". For "Black people". "For 'whites', "yellow", "brown" and so on.
And so on.
As long as anyone is allowed and wants to talk about anyone labeled as "Them" the way AOC & Co. talk about "The Rich," they prove that what they preachā "equality" and the RIGHT NOT to be "equal," to not give a damn SHIT about "equality" ā, is neither represented nor meant seriously by them, but is merely deceitful rhetoric to lure "voters."
Exactly the same crap as all of AOC & Co.'s "competitors."
Unelectable, to be BANNED.
I am not a fan of AOC's politics!
ThatĀ“s why I didnĀ“t claim that.
I am so not an expert. I would love to know what you think of the flat tax for everyone? That always seemed like a good idea on paper.
We moved from WA to Taxachusetts. What a difference a state makes.
Cariisa, the devil is always in the details.
We donāt have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem. Every blue state and city has high taxes and record budgets. Yet the quality of public services keeps declining. The amount of fraud and waste is staggering. Until that is fixed, raising taxes will not improve anything except making crony commissars rich.
That's what people say against raising taxes.
Socialist Mayor Zohran has proposed a property tax hike to cover his record $127 billion budget. Based on annual revenue, NYC would be the 32nd largest corporation in America between NVIDIA and Goldman Sachs. The city has ~300,000 employees, which is near the top 10 with General Electric. New York stateās $260 billion budget does not include NYC and would be #12, between JP Morgan and Costco. The largest NYC budget item is education at ~$50 billion. That equates to ~$40,000 per year per student in a school system where most canāt read or do math at grade level. It would be the 90th largest corporation by revenue between Nike and Deere.
The 'poor people' never get the money directly in their hand. It's always paid to community groups and arts clubs and crap like that. Most of the 'poor people' dont sign up for the drama group or the art class or the patronizing "how to cook healthy meals classes' so they get no benefit from all this community funding. The few who are clued up enough to sign up to knitting classes or that drama group etc they find ways to get into the funding (cos they're the clever ones). It's so rubbish.
Most people agree that poor people rarely get money or other forms of help directly when it is dispensed by politicians because most politicians see politics as a wonder job that helps them self fund themselves into higher levels of unearned income. But in India during the pandemic, Prime Minister Modi had his government establish bank accounts for the poor linked directly to them by issuing them an identity card with their individual biodata contained on it. It is described in this Google description: The primary identity card used for bank accounts by poor people in India is the Aadhaar card, a 12-digit unique biometric ID issued by the UIDAI. It acts as a foundational document for opening bank accounts (specifically under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana - PMJDY) and enables direct benefit transfers (DBT) for government subsidies. If something like this could be done in Western nations? It is difficult because so many corrupt people other than the poor want to steal the funds subsidies for themselves which either wipes it out or drives the costs of such subsidies way up with no way to for the government to reclaim the lost funds. Human greed short circuits the helping hand. Private funding for poor people requires more comprehensive documentation proof of need in order to preserve the funding to be available. It not unlike a Thanksgiving dinner at a church or food pantry where 5 to 10 people with 5 or 6 bags take most all the food or as much as they can carry out the door to a waiting car, leaving nothing for large numbers of poor people who arrived too late for any food to be left over for them.
That's interesting about India. I didn't know that. I'm glad very poor people got some help direct.
One way to make $5 million go a long way is to live small. But people who live small are pitied rather than celebrated because they continually short change themselves to last longer by living slower. John Robbins, son of Baskin-Robbins co-founder Irv Robbins, famously walked away from a,multi-billion dollar ice cream inheritance in the 1960s to live a simple, conscious life. He embraced a plant-based lifestyle, living in a small cabin and advocating for health and sustainability. Despite later losing his savings to Bernie Madoff, he continued to promote conscious, frugal living.
I am not suggesting that the answer for being born into wealth is to go acetic like John Robbins who probably felt guilty for his father's success. Everyone is gifted in different ways and it seems one of the rarer gifts is being born into wealth. Although it can be a curse if one does not have a good purpose. And this is personal decision, but just as someone is gifted with wealth sometimes they feel less guilty for that gift if they are able to gift others in different ways from having been gifted with wealth. But it's a matter of personal choice. Also it's personal choice for how much someone who has been gifted believe they should be taxed. There are all sorts of gifts people may have been given and the difficulty is to uncover them and make good choices to make full and beneficial use of them for oneself or for others. One choice is to fund comprehensive research to search for a cure for a disease. I think it is useless for AOC or Mandami to punish those who are wealthy. God does not favor punishing them. So why can't Socialist activists appreciate all the benefits over centuries that wealthy people have generously provided although that is always subject to fierce debate along with everything else!
I'm not an AOC fan. My point is that what she and Bernie advocate is performance, not substantive. We have both a revenue and an inequality rpioblem.
Totally agree.
Sounds like my kind of person and yes,you don't get seen as "winning" you get perceived as a "loser" or as having lost or maybe not having it in the first place. One thing I learned is that most poor people want and aspire to money because they understandably and justifiably don't like being poor so if you choose a simple lifestyle..well no one likes their ideals being dissed. And what they respect and admire being ignored.
This is thoughtful and smart. A word of caution about unions. I agree that the absence of strong unions is an important factor in income disparity, but there is a long list of reasons why the influence of unions in the U.S. has declined from where it was to what it is. The most prominent of those reasons is globalization, which hasnāt gone away. At the same time, despite globalization, there are countries where unions are far more successful (e.g., Germany). Maybe we could import an idea or two that would be doable and practical in the American system. Maybe. (Is there a tariff on importing ideas? Weād have to consider that in our calculations.)
Thanks Sam and hi!
Itās wonderful just to get people talking this much about taxes! I think these are the kinds of conversation that help us all understand one another as well as our collective needs and concerns. These are the conversation that should be informing tax reforms. Substack public hearing events!
Once again I learned a lot about the US David, so thank you. I had not known that different states in the US could set the labour rates so low, or as they please, to create tax situations to attract the wealthy to go there. And there is no national rates.
Its just wrong that people cannot afford even low end, affordable housing, despite working what would be seen as a 'decent' job once upon a time. And this is also the case in the UK and Spain, where I now live. Especially for those who have studied for so long and with student loans etc. Even for a couple. Mind you, in the UK there are not the homes to buy or rent anyway now.
I was shocked to hear what the minimum wage is there! I thought id would be much higher. Currently it has been raised to 9.26-9.55ā¬ per hour here, which buys nothing really after 40 hours a week. And they wonder why there is still so much black money here! My daughter is a corporate manager for Marks and Spencer in the UK, where national minimum wage is Ā£12.71 this year and they exceed this for their shop workers but are planning to raise it to Ā£13+ soon rather than gives bonuses and wage increase to the management levels which is sound practise for all the reasons you mentioned.
I can't comment on wealth taxes for the wealthy but I honestly think if governments really spoke to, and involved people like yourself and Allison etc, around policy making for all taxes and real humans had a proper say, it could all be so much fairer for everyone. And I just have to say, I think you are such a nice man David.
Thanks Sally. On the minimum wage, the Federal rate Iis the lowest that all 50 states have to meet, but many states and cities have far higher minimum wages. The state with the higher minimums tend to be the ones on the coasts like California and New York where the cost of living is higher as are taxes and social benefits.
I just read an article in the WSJ about female billionaires, and Alice Walton is at number one, with something like $138 BILLION DOLLARS. I don't care how many art museums she opens, many of her employees don't have health care because Wal Mart deliberately schedules them under the hours they need to qualify. A few years ago there was an article about a Wal Mart store running a food drive... for its own employees. Her siblings also have the same amount of billions.
At what point does enough become enough? How can they excuse treating their employees poorly (in some areas, Wal Mart is the largest employer, so please don't say "work somewhere else")? Terrible people.
Thanks Pam. that's where labor unions would make a huge difference. Wal Mart has been among the most aggressive anti-union companies.
Can people stop shopping there? Not if it's the only store in town maybe. In the UK our succesive political administrations for the last 45 years have been slowly eroding our UK culture with the aim to USA it,but only all the bad bits.
You can't discuss tax policy without recognizing that it is a political problem. When I taught my class in critical thinking, I opened by saying, "We're not here to discuss what should be. We all know what should be. We're here to discuss what is." Meanginful tax reform is not a question of finding the right formula, but rather finding a way to get the formula enacted over the objections of those who will pour millions of dollars and serious political muscle into ensuring that it is not enacted. This goes beyond buying off legisators--there is perhaps the bigger problem of the propaganda foisted on those who would most benefit. Scream "socialism," for example, and true health care reform is doomed. Talk about "death taxes," and the rich get to give away a ridiculous amount of wealth tax free, while the working class, who will never meet the trigger level, are conned into thinking they are protecting democracy. Income inequality doesn't happen by accident. It is only during those rare periods when public anger actually boils over that anything is done. Otherwise the Wall Street Journal can keep up their stream of smug editorials about why a grossly unfair tax system is good for America.
True, Larry. "Death Tax" was a brilliant piece of political marketing. The political barriers are high although we may be reaching a point, thanks in part to this administration, where anger does boil over. And Sanders and AOC do the political effort no favors because they fit into the leftist narrative and care more about their images than doing real work.
I'm not sure about the first. But, David, wow, you are a true capitalist at heart. Say what you want about Bernie's and AOC's policies, but they are NOT fake. This isn't about image, but sincerely held beliefs. You can criticize them for being naive (I do)...as they would similarly criticize you...but spend a little time studying Bernie's record as mayor of Burlington and you won't call him self-serving. You had the same criticism of Mamdani. Sorry, but given your upbringing, I don't think you are qualified to judge their motives.
My main criticism of Mamdani was and is his antisemitism.
Bernie and AOC fall into the trap you laid out of spouting policies that have no political chance; they end up being foils for uber-capitalists.
Mamdani has never demonstrated one scintilla of antisemitism. He has lived around Jews most of his life. What he has stressed is opposition to Israel's behavior in Gaza and the Netayahu governments encouraging a policy that is just short of apartheid...if it is short of. I cannot understand why American Jews refuse to acknowledge that the supposed explosion of antisemitism has an eerie correlation to Israel's wanton destruction in Gaza, which went way beyong its supposed military objectives. You can equate Israel and judaism politically if you want, but that cuts two ways. As for Bernie and AOC, yup, their ideas have no chance of adoption now, but neither did social security, gay marriage, equal voting rights, or all sorts of other ideas that were outside the political boundaries, until they weren't. Medicare for all, for example, may be a non-starter, but a national single-payer health care system may not be.
We disagree, and thatās ok.
Definitely. Second order agreement works.
Good point. Last year at the time when Inheritance Tax was IN THE NEWS radio phone ins were packed with angry callers in whose estates ie house plus personal goods wont come anywhere near IT level that is if the care home hasn't claimed it for payment of their bills. Just the idea panics people but the owners of Stately Homes and Mansions will have their property registered in such a way that it's tax liability is negligible.
And all the tax reprieve given to corporate America and New York developers (our leader included)?
Social Security is our biggest federal budget item. A lot of people aren't relying on those checks. My parents, for example, were public school employees, not rich by any means, but their retirement pensions meant Social Security wasn't critical. It seems SS should be means-tested, but I guess that makes it an entitlement and so that'll never fly.
I donāt understand how/why people who get pensions also get SS? Honest question. Agree that many wealthy people donāt rely on SS to live. Yet they did pay into itā¦ so do they opt out? Medicare is based on income however, my hubby just went on and due to IRMA pays nearly $800 a month for his share. I am 62 and pay 1500 a month for individual insuranceā¦. Now thatās a problem we need to fix!
For those advocating means testing, the carrot for outsized contributions to SS was a diminishing return but a return NTL on those contributions. Deciding after said contributions and corresponding plans made that the contract needs modifications is a violation of said contract. I know that taxpaying citizens contributing their earnings from their labor, not their investments can join the list of those whose treaties/covenants have been reneged on by the US government but if you're looking for people to throw under the bus there are bigger targets out there.
Bernie used to rant against Millionaires and Billionaires until HE became a Millionaire around 2020 and then he switched to only Billionaires. How convenient.
Well, there is this thing called inflation, which means that a million dollars today is worth far, far less than it was sixty years ago when he first started working in politics.
Nowadays, we have some billionaires competing to be the first trillionaire and since the top ten richest people in the world have a combined total of 1.8 **trillion** dollarsā¦
Certainly, that is true, but his āadjustments for inflationā just happened to coincide with his personal change in status.
And his personal change in status just happened to coincide with the increase in inflation.
Wrong. Inflation is always continuously eating away, but the recent large increases started after 2020, his earnings from book sales made his annual income >= 1 MM$ post his 2016 Presidential run. So his rhetoric shifted BEFORE the 2020s inflation increase.
I suppose the fact that he first started attacking the millionaires in the 1960s, one million dollars was the equivalent of ten million dollars today, doesnāt count?
That is six decades of inflation including the double digit inflation of the Volcker years.
A million dollars hasnāt been real money for some decades now.
Well your final statement is correct, but that it seems more than coincidence that Bernie suddenly dropped the Millionaire schtick the minute he became oneā¦.
Itās hard to get on board with more taxes when there is so much fraud. I am a resident in a blue highly taxed state (IL) - even so, the state is broke due to the pension crisis, people leaving, etc. Our property taxes are among the highest in the nation and much of it goes to fund public schools - which are failing miserably.. Iād love for my taxes to be used to help the actual needy and not towards fraud and programs that basically create jobs but donāt solve problemsā¦ as for AOC, hard passā¦ how rich is she now and how much does she pay in taxes?
it's really hard to know how much is lost to fraud. Even harder now since the trump Administration fired so many of the Inspector Generals whose job it was to investigate fraud.
Sure, cutting fraud is always good as is making govt. more efficient. But those are not substitutes for the additional revenues that the Federal govt. needs.
It strikes me as the essence of fraudulent to fire the people whose jobs it is/was to investigate and root out fraud- sounds like unserious leadership.
But now heās appointed Vance to be the fraud czar. Not sure how this plays with the other side of the aisleā¦ but maybe this will be DOGE 2.0? Halfway said in jest, but after whatās happened in MN and is also happening in other states, something needs to be done.
As a Minnesotan, yes the particular fraud that Trump has co opted as a scandal was bad. It was also already being prosecuted before Trump seized it as a way to punish Minnesota. Mostly because of Tim Walz and Ilhan Omar, of course. And anti Somali racism. And then the lead US Attorney for MN and many others in the office quit as well, and they were the ones actually doing the prosecuting work, because Trump wanted them to investigate Renee Good's wife!
I could go on, but I'm sure you get my point. Fraud is bad, taking away federal funds to punish Minnesota and sending masked agents in to detain 5 year olds and kill American citizens is bad.
Yes and hopefully things are being rectified with changes at the top.