Well, lots to respond to here. Been tied up with work and saw Scott Bessent speak last night. He was hilarious! Will attempt to reply to most from my flight to JFK.
New Democrat Tax Hikes
- Thread starter scotchtiger
- Start date
That isn’t the point here. This post is not complaining about the amount of taxes currently paid. It’s complaining about adding 30 Million MORE people to the list of those who contribute nothing in federal income tax. That’s absurd.
Open to certain corp tax changes.
I’ve specifically addressed billionaires. My point there is simple. If you are going to complain about the taxes billionaires pay, propose something specific to them. Not something that affects people making $400k or $1m. Those levels of wealth are miles and miles apart.
Seems to be confusion here. I’m not suggesting adding a tax to anyone in this thread. I’m specifically addressing the absurd idea of adding 30 million MORE people to the list of those who do not pay any federal income taxes.
For the scenario you mentioned (deceased husband), we have entitlements in place for that today. However, I suspect this is an extremely minor subset of single moms. Most are in that position because they had a kid out of wedlock, had a kid before they were financially stable or had a kid with a total loser. Those are all choices. Bad ones. I empathize with them, but we also need to shift to a culture where this is less prevalent. There’s no punishment here. Just accountability, personal responsibility, etc. Basic things we should expect of every American.
Why use $10M? This proposal specifically targets those making $1M, a mere 1/10 of your example.
This isn’t true at all, and completely ignores much of my commentary over the years. I have a basic expectation or personal responsibility for every American. I don’t care if you make $50k or $5m. But a lot of problems would be solved with elevated levels of accountability and personal responsibility across our society.
Yeah, you definitely have kind of ego it takes for someone to place a set of basic expectations on 360 million people that he doesn't know and whose lives are absolutely none of his business, so this all tracks.
You really might be the worst person who posts here.
Last edited:
“You can be like me if you try hard enough. That’s the only thing holding you back.”
Gotcha. Yes, I think there is a lot of debate and certainly companies that are bubbles. But over next 5-10 years I’m not sure anyone thinks this won’t fundamentally change the world unlike anything that civilization has experienced.
I really don’t understand these comments. I’m not asking anyone to be like me. I’m asking people to not be dependent on the government. There’s a massive gap between that low bar and the expectations I have for myself.
You quoted me, so you know my post said the last 45 years. So I'm sitting here somewhat perplexed as to why you've introduced Jimmy Carter into the discussion?
I’ve been sounding the AI alarm on here for a while. My company is heavily involved in its use in healthcare. And we leverage it internally. We’ve grown 70% YoY the last few years while keeping headcount flat. AI is going to replace entire job categories. It’s going to create opportunities as well, but probably not near the pace at which it will eliminate jobs. I don’t know what the answer is, but I hope really smart people are working on it.
You're "asking" 360 million people to adhere to a standard that you set, personally, just you. That it isn't the same standard you set for yourself is immaterial. Who the fck are you? Just some guy. And you think the population of an entire country should live up to a standard you set.
You're irrational to an extreme.
You have convinced yourself that people are willingly choosing to be dependent on the government than have a life of independence from the government where they can make money of their own to live a good life.
60 percent of households are living paycheck to paycheck. You seem to believe it’s because they are not responsible/accountable enough to change their circumstances. That they rather be there than change their life.
I’m not setting any standard. What is acceptable to each person is their own choice. I’m just saying that people should be personally responsible and not have a permanent dependence on the government.
And it does have something to do with me, because I’m being asked to pay more money in exchange for others having their federal income taxes eliminated. No thanks!
you’ve spent a lot of time denigrating people less fortunate than you for receiving benefits or not paying income tax. You’ve made it painfully clear that you believe you are overtaxed and I wouldn’t disagree.
I get the instinct to cut spending — but if that’s genuinely your goal, targeting benefits for the poor is a spectacularly inefficient way to go about it.
SNAP costs about $100 billion a year and feeds 42 million people. That sounds like a big number until you realize it’s 1.6% of the federal budget. You’re not solving a fiscal crisis by cutting food assistance to families spending roughly $6 a day on groceries — 85% of whom include a child, an elderly person, or someone with a disability.
If you actually want to move the needle on spending and taxation, here’s where the real money is hiding:
Corporate subsidies cost taxpayers nearly $100 billion a year in direct handouts — grants, loans, below-market insurance, and special interest carve-outs — to corporations many of which are posting record profits. That’s a dollar-for-dollar match with SNAP, going the opposite direction.
Tax expenditures (the deductions, credits, deferrals, and loopholes baked into the tax code) totaled $1.9 trillion in 2024 alone. That’s more than the entire Defense budget and more than Social Security, just quietly bled out through the tax code every year.
Offshore tax evasion cost the U.S. Treasury an estimated $688 billion in lost revenue in 2021 alone. Wealthy individuals and multinationals are parking trillions in the Cayman Islands and Bermuda while the rest of us pick up the tab.
The deferral loophole — which lets corporations indefinitely defer taxes on overseas profits — costs the Treasury about $126 billion a year by itself. That’s more than SNAP, from a single loophole.
The tax gap — meaning taxes that are already legally owed but simply go uncollected — runs about $600 billion a year, largely because IRS enforcement capacity has been gutted over the past decade. We could fund SNAP six times over just by collecting what people already legally owe.
And then there’s carried interest, which lets hedge fund and private equity managers pay capital gains rates on what is functionally their employment income — meaning they pay lower rates than the nurses and teachers they manage money for.
if this is about fiscal responsibility, there’s $1-2 trillion worth of low-hanging fruit sitting right there, benefiting the wealthiest people and most powerful corporations in the world.
So I’m curious if your gripes are about taxation and entitlements, why are you not as vocal about the above?
Well, I have news for you. And you are going to hate the solution they are proposing!
I Van Hollen's proposal to lower taxes on certain groups is bad policy and will lead to austerity but we need to tax the higher income brackets more
While I could see it being needed, and an eventuality, I don't see a chance it happens that quickly.
as you can see from the emoji, Chumsky isn't much interested in personal responsibility. Just take from someone else and give it to him. That has worked so well everyplace it has been tried.
there are a lot of things like immigration, healthcare, debt and taxes, to name a few of our current issues, that need good, hard, evaluation and change. I imagine a large majority of us would agree with that statement. Unfortunately our elected officials are far too concerned with fighting for wins for their party rather than wins for the country.
its hard to negotiate when everyone gets super charged political about this stuff. The brackets are always negotiable... I just threw out 10m as an example.
I received the same answer when I asked my lefty friends why they were voting for Kamala. No answer. Basically, if you are a democrat, you vote democrat. No matter how dumb they seem to be. Example - Kalama Harris.
Last edited:
I do too. I still believe a reasonable moderate Democrat would have won in 2016 and 2024.
The question becomes, who do democrats have that can win a primary in a progressive Democrat party primary/convention that will bring more moderate independent voters back to vote for a Democrat. Somebody posted in another thread that when asked that question fetterman responded "TDS". That would lead me to believe that he doesn't seem to know who is, or might be, the leader. But the election is 2 years away, and anything can happen
I think someone like Mark Kelly, JD Pritzker or Josh Shapiro could be the answer and I suspect all of them will throw their hats in the ring.
I think Pritzger might have too much economic baggage --first he's a billionaire, and second, Illinois is a financial disaster, not all by pritzger's doing, but it doesn't seem to have gotten much better. The other two, might be an answer.
Some very good points. Why have democrat tax proposals simply pressed increasing income taxes rather than address the issues you cited? I'd be much more interested in solutions to those gaps vs. simply raising my taxes. But I haven't seen a proposal from either side to do it. And I have to fight back on proposals suggesting more money should be taken from my family.
gee, that was a long time ago, so i'd be less than honest if I told you I remembered what were the key issues of her campaign. So rather than just blurt out something that I wouldn't be able to defend, I'll just have to say "I don't remember". At least that way, I'd be honest.
