Your concerns would come across as more valid if you would tell us what loopholes you're talking about.
My grandparents were sharecroppers. My dad worked two jobs and built out fort home by himself on weekends. I worked from the time I was 10 or 12 years old and that kept me from participating in extracurricular activities at school. I was able to go to college and get a decent job but I lived in a below average apartment with a roommate to be able to afford it. The bottom line is I came from a working class family yet you insist I have a beef with them. I understand life can be tough but I disagree that all of a sudden corporations became greedy and that in recent years the system has been rigged for the rich.
No. Thanks to Trump, the IRS is a complete and utter incompetent clustereff right now. And it's losing more and more revenue. The idiots. They needed to staff up and collect the revenue they've been missing for years ... instead they effed us just to appease the anti-government fools.
everybody knows we need to increase the amount for SS deductions...have known it for years. For some reason neither republicans nor democrats, when in power, have chosen to bite the bullet and do it.
of course the opposite of that is for those who are in the bottom 50% to upgrade their skill sets and join the upper 50%. Now before you go into an outrage about how difficult that is, go visit a military recruiter. Lots of opportunities to learn a skill, and earn a good wage.
but you come across as someone who blames corporations for following the laws set by Congress. Yes, both parties have a stake in setting the tax codes. We have been blasting corporations since at least the Obama administration. We've had Republican and Democrat control but the tax laws, according to lots on here, still favor corporations. If you or I were incorporated, we'd both take as many benefits as we could. In fact, I'd wager we take as many deductions, credits or whatever on our individual returns.
I think Ned stated something like this....if there are loopholes, why haven't they been addressed during Democrat leadership and if the loop holes are legal, you cannot demonize people for using them.
The IRS received my amended tax return for 2022 on August 2025. It took them until last week to process it. The delay could be due to personnel reductions but they mostly blamed the 75 day government shutdown when I called to check the status.
The median family income in the USA is roughly $85k. A two income couple each earning $20/hr would earn that much. I think that's a pretty low bar but half earn less than that. It's sad. Maybe this has something to do with it:
Well, Biden tried hiring 87,000 new IRS agents but Ted Cruz told MAGA that these agents were coming after them, which we all know, coming from Ted, was a lie.
Some think the federal corporate tax rate should be moved back to 35% or even higher. The U.S. rate is currently 21% which is close to the OECD average. I don't think it would be a good idea for the U.S. to have higher tax rates in a global economy.
Taxing the rich will always be great politics because you're appealing to 95% while only offending 5%. I assure you we could raise the top rate from 37% to 45% and politicians would still say we need to tax the rich.
Here we go again.
There aren't enough billionaires so the IRS would move much further down the ladder in an attempt to generate enough revenue to justify the cost. But I agree that the IRS wouldn't start cracking down on granny. There's no money to be made there.
But we still need millions of people working with their backs. What happens to the US when half the population can't afford decent housing or adequate medical care. You'd rather be a citizen of the world? A truly prosperous country should be able to pay enough to live on. A corporation raking in billions in profits and paying its executives hundreds of millions of dollars every year can certainly afford it.
The plan was specifically set up to apply to 90% of all income. They didn't foresee the huge compensation disparity that was ahead. Indexing it to inflation seemed reasonable but that was not based on a future K-shaped income gap. Simple fix - reset it and revisit it every couple of years.
given AI and the "takeover" but computers, I'm not sure if 87000 were really necessary. Not being critical, but given the rapid change in data usage, and applications, workers are being replaced. But I don't have access to the data the government does. It still seems to me that 95,000 employees is a solid number for IRS
here's the thing about wages, IMO, remember we llive in a supply and demand world. The more workers looking for jobs the less the employer has to pay. But go back to economics and marginal wage theory. Why would an employer pay $50/hour (or any number) when he can hire all the workers he needs for $20.
You kind of defeated your entire post with your last sentence. I'll let you figure out how.
So everyone should take those opportunities and leave the bottom 50%?
well, one thing I've learned in our back and forths is that you and I are not on the same wavelength when it comes to communicating. So, I'm going to assume you pay the plumber $50???
yea sooner or later there is not bottom...but isn't that a worthy objective. I come back to one of my previous posts...no opportunity, go visit your local military recruiter...
A truly prosperous country (just like a football team) has everybody working and contributing to the best of their ability. It doesn't have one of the highest debt to GDP ratios among developed nations where nearly a third of the population receives some sort of government assistance.
And that's a good thing. If a particular skillset is in demand employers will pay higher wages to attract such people. Pharmacists are a good example. If people don't care so much about your particular skillset the low demand will keep wages depressed. That's people who major in Art, music, fashion design, and theater wind up working at Starbucks then complain about how unfair things have become.
There's always going to be a bottom 50% but there is no good reason why most of them can't improve their circumstances by taking responsibility and making good life decisions.
I bolded the above. This is always true no matter how you want to deny it. Sometimes it is due to circumstances, but many, many times it is due to choices.
thing is, at some point, we're all going to have to pay more....we can't keep running $2trillion deficits. But, I have little confidence we'll spend it wisely - and of course, there's no definition of what spending wisely even means.
LOL... I assume you think you get to tell the plumber what you're going to pay. You pay the plumber what they tell you to pay. Like you have a choice to do otherwise? You can bring in other plumbers and if they all tell you a similar price, you get to bargain around the edges. And then you pay them what they want.
You're kidding, of course.
$80 Trillion? On what timeline? Do you plan a budget based on a 75-year projection? Does anyone?
LOL talk about a lack of self-awareness.
That's the exact type of thinking that caused the problem we now face.
You didn't answer the question. What do you think the 75-year projection was when they passed the SS fix in 1977? Do you think they accurately predicted those numbers? A 75-year forecast is a joke. As for the rest...fix it. We know how.
I think you missed my point on the plumber. when he hands you the bill for $50 an agreed upon price for the work..that's what you give him $50.
for a lot of us on here, or at least some of us, we grew up when there was no such thing as welfare or food stamps. And, amazingly we survived and thrived.
