So, I hear that taxes are about to rise substantially soon (in 2025) as some Trump tax cuts expire and also Biden's 40% capital gains tax takes effect. I haven't been following the details of these since they come from several news stories over some time now. I just know that it's said that taxes are going up. Combine that with a well-funded IRS, and the government should get more tax income soon. Do you think that we will be able to fund everything that the government is currently doing or will the government add on new costs for new programs by expanding what they do?
With high inflation, the capital gains tax won't just be a tax on real capital gains, but effectively a tax on wealth. Which is what many on the Left are enthusiastic about. Think about it. Even if the actual worth of the property did not really increase, with money inflation there is automatically price inflation of the property. It may not be worth more, but it is worth more dollars because those dollars have become worth less. You still get taxed on that. (The tax doesn't allow you to subtract inflation from the capital gains calculation) It becomes like a tax on buying and selling any valuable property, with you being taxed more the longer you have held the property. And the more inflation there is, the more the real effective tax rates will automatically go up, without government having to pass any new laws.
Most of the tax base has been off-shored now, and the few remaining high productivity jobs in the U.S. are flooded with green card workers. Most new job creation is from govt. spending, i.e. in industries like health care and state and local govt. and their contractors. Financial capitalism guts economies, it doesn't build them or improve them; it loots them and hollows them out via crushing debt. We need to rebuild our industrial base again. That will require tariffs, same as it did in the 19th Century, when our industrial base grew to outstrip Britain and Germany's. Unless you believe we can all get rich selling each other Apple stock back and forth; in that case never mind there is no problem in your mind.
Another thing that's been happening is that with inflating land prices, property taxes have been automatically increasing (since it's based on a fixed percentage). This is putting pressure on many people, and in some cases even forcing some to have to move, or even have to give up having a house. You might ask where these property taxes are going, since you would assume local counties would have more money. Well first of all, with rising land prices and rents, business costs go up, so things get more expensive and the city's money does not go as far. Second, usually about half of property taxes go to pay for county-wide and local schools. And due to high levels of immigration, there are more children in schools, so the public schools require this additional funding. There was one report, for example, that showed over half of the students in the Chicago public school system were children of immigrants. Here is a report that says that between 33 to 35 percent of the parents of children under the age of 11 in the state of New York's public schools are immigrants from a foreign country (as of 2021). It costs somewhere around $18,000 per child per year. In New York City, it costs over $30,000 per student per year (source here). City expenses are also rising because with more people it means more infrastructure has to be built. More roads, or widening roads, which can be very expensive. Certainly the massive number of migrants have put a financial strain on some big cities. In late 2023, there were 20,000 migrant children entering school for the first time in New York City (source here). But I think overall, many cities are more flush with cash now, and it remains to be seen whether these cities will reduce the tax rates. Usually the ones running cities are reluctant to want to decrease the revenue they have to spend.
Americans are undertaxed. There is not enough revenue to pay for what we're doing now, let alone any new initiatives.
the people most undertaxed are the bottom 90% who use the vast majority of government resources but pay very little in federal income taxes. They need to pay more to incentivize them to stop voting for politicians who promise them more and more handouts and expect the top 1% to pay for it
sorry I reject the "from each according to (what the left says) their ability the top one percent pay many dollars for each dollar of benefit the bottom pays pennies at best the issue is not that the rich don't pay enough the issue is that those who want more and more aren't paying for it
If not financial capitalism what system of capital formation to you propose to rebuild all these industries and hire all these new factory workers here domestically? If you propose we go back to tariffs as in the 19th century do you also propose we do away with the income tax system which did not exist in the 19th century? The income tax system came into existence BECAUSE of the tariff system The Problem of the Tariff in American Economic History, 1787–1934 James Madison viewed tariffs as necessary to raise revenue but was caught off-guard by early attempts to enact tariffs for industry protection. Alexander Hamilton and Henry Clay supported the use of tariffs to stimulate infant industries. However, there’s little evidence the American System of tariffs and industrial subsidies was responsible for American economic growth in the 19th century. Contrary to the “national conservative” narrative, many of the leading figures of the American Founding opposed the protectionist arguments of Hamilton and Clay. From 1789 to 1934, tariff-seeking industries were notorious for diverting resources into rent-seeking, or the lobbying of Congress for preferential rates with bribes and backroom deals. Corruption associated with protectionist tariff policy of the late 19th century directly led to adoption of the 16th Amendment and the federal income tax as an alternative revenue system. Modern American trade policy was restructured in 1934 to bypass the disastrous Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which exacerbated the Great Depression and illustrated the tendency of protectionist tariffs to serve corrupt interest groups. ...... Conclusion At its heart, the national conservative charge to revive tariffs is an attempt to reverse this pattern and return the United States to the Smoot–Hawley model of congressional primacy in trade policy. They present this objective as part of a historical narrative that appeals to Hamilton and especially Clay and assert an unsubstantiated link between 19th-century economic growth and tariffs. Concurrently, they conspicuously omit any hint of the rampant corruption of tariff schedules in the congressional era, of the many times that tariff hikes backfired from Civil War diplomacy to the economic ruination of the Great Depression, and of the substantial opposition that protectionism faced from other leading figures of the American Founding. As James Madison discovered in 1789, not even the careful checks and balances of the new constitutional system could keep the problem of the faction at bay. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in the new government’s tariff power. Some 230 years later, we are still grappling with Madison’s lessons. https://www.cato.org/publications/problem-tariff-american-economic-history-1787-1934#conclusion
However you feel about tariffs, it seems like a much better idea than raising corporate tax rates on American companies, which is what many on the Left (such as Kamala Harris) say they want to do. Seems like Trump wants to raise taxes on foreign companies, whereas many Democrats seem to want to raise taxes specifically on American companies.
I agree that taxes are too low in the US, ...and the real solution to raising needed revenue and not impoverishing the bottom 60% of the population further is higher income. That should start with a raise in the federal minimum wage to about $17/hour. What is actually happening, as has been happening for many, many years, is that the US worker is getting whipsawed by policy. First we get politicians telling us they want to cut taxes and the ignorant worker cheers. Then new policy may give the worker a few crumbs but gives the rich a windfall. Then politicians say we're spending too much relative to tax revenue, so they cut "entitlements", harming the needy and the retired. Then it's back to "we need to reduce taxes". The circle is completed: reduce taxes for the rich, cut services to the public, reduce taxes, cut services, reduce taxes, etc. etc. etc. ..... --all in service to the wealth of the wealthy. Do we really pay too much in taxes?
yea, according to their ability to pay. Some needy folks get net benefits from government. There's no sense in providing a benefit and then taxing it.
Plenty of people want taxes to be raised. Nothing is stopping those people from sending extra money from their pockets to the government now. I wonder why they won't pony up what they think they should pay...
1) Because they are parasites that think only others should have to pay and that they (the parasites) deserve free stuff paid for by other taxpayers? 2) Because they say they believe in the collective, but they really don't - it is virtue signaling. We can probably come up with more reasons. What are yours?
Do you think that explanation fits the many billionaires who call for higher taxes? https://www.businessinsider.com/bil...tax-americans-disney-soros-buffett-dalio?op=1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/carter...lionaires-more-taxes-gates-buffett-bloomberg/
2) Because they say they believe in the collective, but they really don't - it is virtue signaling. We can probably come up with more reasons. What are yours?
Unlike some, the rich are smart enough to know that if they send an extra $10 million to the IRS there is no guarantee that anyone else will do likewise or that federal revenue will be increased by it enough to accomplish anything noticeable. They know for "higher taxes" to work it has to be legislation affecting more than just them. big DUH
So... even though it is the "right" thing to do, it is "I ain't doin' it unless everyone does it?" That is virtue signalling at its finest. If everyone who thinks taxes should be higher would send another 20 percent of their earnings to the feds, it would be a significant amount. But that won't happen, will it?
You can spin it any way that suits you or me. For example, "even though 'it' (whatever that is) is the right thing to do, it must be done only by the rich". Or "even though it's needed, we shouldn't raise the minimum wage". Or any number of ridiculous BS. I gave you what everyone knows to be the truth and you're trying your best to spin it no matter how it looks.
