The cap on social security tax should be eliminated and for every dollar earned a worker should pay into the system. The tax rate should be reinstated for corporations and make them pay more than 20% when they’ve already received more tax breaks than any individual. Finally President bife s idea of raising the tax rate on very wealthy individual should be enacted. Those people make money on the backs of poor Americans and they should pay for them if they’re not going to pay them fair wages, which they do not.
All true. Throughout my working career the cap was raised more than once. I believe there shouldn’t be a cap at all. Having a cap on social security reinforces the beliefs of the very wealthy that they owe nothing to society or their country.
And, they should eliminate the WEP for those of us who made our life's work in the deep state. Not all of us used our positions to enrich ourselves in other ways.
Windfall Elimination Provision. It reduces one's Social Security benefits if you worked for a short time in a job that ultimately paid you a retirement benefit hat was not subject to FICA, whether that job was in the US or in another country. If in another country, one's Soc Sec benefit it also reduced because the fewer number of years you paid into FICA -- they double dip on you. The WEP is also rigged if one worked overseas in that the recipient bears all the risk of currency exchange fluctuations on the foreign "pension" and which rate the admin chooses to initially and forever use.
Also when one does not pay fica tax as happens with railroad pensions then u must pay for medicare coverage. Premiums r based upon the amount of pension .income..minimum $299.00 per month
Windfall Elimination Provision - an amount that is cut from you ellegible Social Security benefit because you worked for state or local government. In my case I get about 40% of what I would get if I hadn't worked for the State.
Corporations need to be heavily taxed on stock buybacks. And penalized if their top management make more than 10 x what the lowest worker in the company make.
I’ve thought this many many times. I’m sure those people on the floor should make at least what the man upstairs makes for making a couple of calls and then goes out for a three hour lunch and never goes back to the office cause he has a racket ball date after his hard day at the office!
Gayna, I agree with you. It is time to get the very rich to pay their proper share of the money that supports this nation, including them, the roads they need, the transportation system, and the workers they don't pay well enough for survival, etc. It is time! We just keep pushing it down the road, but even Republican constituents need to start demanding their reps vote for that, even if it means those reps will have to pay more, which as servants of the people, they should, right after they are made to report all the wealth that comes to them.
I like the idea that if someone or some entity makes money from doing business in this country, they should have to help support our infrastructure and our markets that permitted them to do so.
When we buy most products made elsewhere, some foreigner profits. Tax them.
I also like the idea that tax evaders should be identified and penalized.
Jack, I certainly can’t agree with that proposition. You would be taking a much higher proportion of the wages of the middle class and lower class of funds they need. While the wealthy Are not so burdened. A progressive income tax is by far the more equitable approach.
And how then would we tax capital gains (stocks, etc)?? The majority of wealth accumulated by the ultra rich isn't used to purchase shoes. Unlike the rich who just accumulate wealth and must be taxed higher somehow, the middle class is the class who spends 100% (and more) of its income.
So the rich can get more obscenely rich on the backs of the middle class.Teddy Roosevelt destroyed their power. Now he is disowned by his own party. Tax the rich.
Greg, I don’t like the phrase “tax the rich” It sounds like class warfare. I prefer the phrase “everyone should pay their fare share”. A poorer person should not have to pay a larger percentage of their income than a wealthy one.
The term “class warfare” is just a euphemism for let the rich get even more obscenely wealthy. When wealth is so concentrated as it is today, revolution breaks out, like in France and Russia. That’s class warfare. And the rich always lose.
I hope you meant that as a joke. Sales tax should be 0% for essential items food or paper products. If we could define "junk food & beverages, a sales tax at the local level might be defendable. The most regressive tax costs low earners inequitably.
Sorry, I was referencing Jack Lee's comment. I think South Dakota taxes all sales but has no income tax. Other states also tax all sales. I also think necessities should include diapers (baby & adult).
Jack that's going to be a big problem considering that the rich could easily buy things out of the country it's a little class and specially the poor were being paying 30% sales tax. That's just dead wrong. You should have known that though it's a republican idea
No, people in poverty would bear the greatest part of that system. Tax the rich. I remember Dwight David Eisenhower set upon taxing the ultra wealthy to start funding the highway system he envisioned across the nation. He gave us fair warning about the military/industrial complex. A good man for Americans!
If all made roughly the same amount of money, you would be correct., Jack
But that is not even minimally the case. For example, if one is unemployed and does not receive UI benefits (nationally that turns out to be 72% of the unemployed and in some states more than 90%) and are living on savings no matter how meager, any sales tax rate is, relative to income, INFINITE. I live in a state with no income tax and relies heavily on the sales tax. Low-income workers, pay on average, 15-20% of their income in taxes (the lower the income within this bracket, the higher the effective tax rate) to the state while the very top of earners pay less than 1% of their incomes to the state.
May not be oppressive, but would be regressive, taking a larger percentage of a low-income earner's income. Wouldn't an awful lot of sales need to be taxed to replace income taxes? Progressive income tax seems more fair- arguments to reinstate that are going on in Alaska, as the oil money decreases.
Brett should get a credit for $59, shouldn't he? One must have (some) shoes. How about setting a limit on the number of pairs a person can own? The Imelda Marcoses of the world can pay an excess shoe tax for going over the limit on top of paying the sales tax.
A $59 tax credit for shoes. Sure, those types of exemptions need to be built in. A limit on the number of shoes someone buys, never. Isn't this a free country? If one can afford the purchase and the associated tax, there should be no limit to the number bought: shoes, suits, boats, guns, houses, whatever. An excess shoe tax would require a government accounting of my past shoe purchases. A privacy problem.
We do not need an income tax. Why are we so indoctrinated or enamored with taxing production, earnings, and profits? Check with Florida, Texas, etc. it works.
A tax that’s paid at the point of the transaction. Not at the kitchen table after spending hours preparing it.
And the underground economy. Forget loopholes (legal and illegal). How much income is not taxed due to cheats not reporting income? They love the current income tax arrangement.
People who are building outlandish amount of wealth aren't being paid for their work through wages or salary. They are making their money through unearned channels, and taking loans against their net-worth, and paying no taxes at all. Increasing the taxes on people who earn their money through labor does nothing to hurt the robber barons. We need to break up their empires, and prevent them from protecting their ill-gotten gains through trusts and shell corporations, and then passing through their wealth to their heirs, who re-set the baseline by excluding unrealized capital gains from taxation. So, Gayna, I don't think that the guy who makes $200,000 a year in salary is the problem. It's the guy who makes $200,000,000, and pays no taxes
I've never heard so much whining about the wealthy and making things equitable. Wouldn't true equity be taking the annual federal budget and collecting $6,000 from every man, woman, and child in the U.S.?
Where would people who live pay check to pay check get $6,000 let alone for each possible dependent? You must be blind to people who aren’t you. So cavalier.
I could not disagree more. A percentage of what? Why is “income” the measuring stick? I think of it like voting. We each get one vote. True equity is sharing the cost of government equally. We each have one share of ownership of this entity we call our government.
It's called a regressive tax. A person with $12,000 income would be paying a 50% rate. A person with $12 million would be paying a rate of .005%. Most of the taxes collected in the US are regressive. The federal income tax isn't progressive enough to offset the regressive nature of the other taxes so our overall tax structure is regressive.
This discussion is worth the hour: https://youtu.be/8Ac1P89JMNM It's particularly timely, since PBS has just notified me that "The American Experience" is currently running a piece called "Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History," which is curiously similar to the title of Hartman's previous work "The Hidden History of Monopoly." Check 'em both out!
I've always been on the fence on the electoral college. In discussions here, I've usually refrained from comment, except I may have mentioned "I'm not so sure" once or twice. Hartman has persuaded me that in view of its original purpose, the very mass media and social networking have rendered that reasoning obsolete. Therefore, I'm now totally on board with abolishing the electoral college.
Also: for anyone interested, Hartman provides the phone number for the Capitol switchboard - for anyone here that's wondered how to call:
Capitol switchboard. Ask for the office of any of your elected officials.
202-224-3121
UPDATE: Also at the end is a reference to the national debt. The question raised concerns who holds the debt. I've heard many things about that, but interesting is that it may be many of the debt holders, who keep collecting interest off the debt, >are the very ones< who are bringing up the national debt and threatening to force default. Figures!
I don't think that social media being potentially a force for good was ever really an issue. However, social media is nonetheless a double-edged sword, having a >very< dark side that is >extremely< dangerous for everyone - just like nuclear fission and nuclear fusion!
People have banged-on here about neo-liberalism - that I prefer to hyphenate - since the forum was founded. For those who may be mystified by the exact nature of said econo-speak, here's a good, bite-sized discussion of exactly what said neo-liberalism entails: https://youtu.be/WLiH7Iv5sVs
True! In fact, the REASON we are having this conversation is precisely because business and industry refuses to pay good wages. Wages high enough to make it POSSIBLE to save for retirement. Gosh, if more people understood basic economics, we would be in a much better place.
Well, you can call it whatever you like, but I would like to see EVERYONE pay the same rate I pay, as a minimum. Eliminate the ceiling on earnings for FICA tax. If ONE pays 6.2% on nearly every penny they make, everyone should. No more free ride for those million/billionaires.
Absolutely. In fact, we live in an era where the use of our data for profit and private information has created great profit at the top of the food chain with no compensation for most of us. Their money is making them money so there is no way they should be allowed to be "free riders" through lack of contribution.
Ms. Anthrope, you have that right! The money keeps moving to the top of the food chain, but in a democracy that is not acceptable, especially as you mention, their money is making money to an extreme extent. We can stop that if we have a reformed tax code say, down to about 1,000 pages that is manageable and that covers the rich just as everyone else is covered. Too many tax lawyers have found ways to cheat the system with all the stupid loopholes and means for cheating provided in such a huge document as our current tax code. It's time this is fixed.
Why call it cheating? If the code allows the loophole , the tax treatment, the deduction, the tax credit, whatever; isn’t that just playing by the rules. I have the fiduciary responsibility to myself and the legal obligation to my government to pay the correct amount of tax per the code; no more or no less. Perfectly honest and definitely not cheating.
'same rate' implies a flat tax e.g. 10 or 20 or more percent. Graduated income taxes are not flat taxes. They ask more of those who have earned more. Which is why at one time the top graduated income tax was nearly 90% on a certain portion of an earner's income. Note: the 90% didn't apply to all the earner's income, just to the portion of that income over a certain threshold. Lower rates apply at lower threshold amounts.
I was simply referring to FICA tax. Everyone pays 6.2% of earnings into Social Security. Unless you make more than about $162,000. Then it's a free ride after that. Eliminate the ceiling. Eliminate insolvency. In fact, I bet you could double benefits for those with no retirement stipend.
Okay. It wasn't clear in your comment but I agree. No FICA free rides for millionaires/billionaires.
I would bet that you're right about doubling benefits. Maybe this is where Universal Basic Income comes into play as well. Not just for seniors. https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income/
Jonathan, I agree with you that everyone above the poverty line should be paying that 6.2% into Social Security. It is a good investment for everyone and even the very rich should be contributing on all their wealth because they may need it sometime the way Republicans are playing with the debt ceiling and other things these days.
Well, right now, everyone who earns any money, pays 6.2% FICA, no matter where they fall on the poverty spectrum. I firmly believe we could double benefits for those in poverty, if the ceiling on earnings was eliminated. Think, if a person making $100,000 is paying $6200, then a person making $10million should pay $620,000 into Social Security. And there are a shocking number of people making over $10million these days.
I'll wager that there's not a single billionaire that pays any FICA tax at all. FICA only applies to earned income - wages and salaries. Increasing the threshold on FICA only hurts the upper-middle-class schmuck, not the obscenely rich.
They still get around it by making sure to classify everything they earn over their "salary" as "capital gains" (distributions/stocks) for which they only get taxed at 15%-20%.
Stop putting a ceiling on those capital gains taxes and start taxing anything over a certain amount, can you imagine the squeal coming out of the board rooms, Wall Street and Congress
An easier solution would be to eliminate the earnings cap while leaving benefits as is. The extra revenue would solve the financial gap for 35 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.
Right! However, I brought up doubling benefits as a response to the conservative's demand to reduce benefits. The best defense is a loud offense. That is the way to shut them up!
Jonathan is referring to FICA which has always been a flat tax, but those above a certain income don't pay into it. I agree with Jonathan. You, Terry are referring to an income tax which is and should remain a progressive tax. he more you earn the larger percentage you should pay. Even that needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. Paying more than half your income is not reasonable. So maybe cap at 40%, but we need to take out the so-called loop holes - right now the millionaire/billionaire class have loop holes so large they can pay $0, or $750, like the trumpster did through "creative accounting" a fancy name for cheating and stealing.
Fay, we should be calling what the rich do cheating and stealing which is what it really is. They cheated to get those loopholes included into the tax code, now, they use them to continue cheating and stealing. What a racket!
Yes, Jonathon cleared me up in a reply. See my reply to him.
And no, I disagree with your statement that paying more than half your income is not reasonable.. It really depends on the initial amount doesn't it? Taxes of 70% on 10,000,000 leaves the earner with 3,000,000 Taxes of 90% on 100,000,000,000 leaves the earner with 10,000,000,000 and taxes of 50% on 40,000 leaves the earner with 20,000. (A graduated tax table would make adjustments for the final tax due.....but for the sake of this discussion I greatly simplified it.)
Obviously the last example is unfair. But the first two? I believe most people would say Not so much. Right?
People could live a very luxurious life with that amount of income left. They wouldn't know what to do with any more money than that other than buy personal jets, giant yachts, elections, politicians & social media companies.
You look at income the proper way, by how much you have left after taxation, not just how much you have to pay. This is much more informative about the impact of taxes on individuals.
Terry, thanks for that clarification. I know there are a lot of people who see that 90% and immediately think it means the government is leaving the person only 10% of their wealth. I suspect a whole lot of wealthy people want people to think that so they will oppose a sensible tax rate for the very rich.
And, by the way, I would be in agreement to a flat tax, provided it was on ALL earnings. Right now, the wealthiest people are paying less than about a quarter the rate most folks pay on taxable income. I would be in favor of zero deductions and zero exclusion to income. Make everyone pay on all income. If you want to have 6 kids, great. But it isn't even reasonable to expect others to support your family like they do now. The thing is, I'm betting the rate would be lower than it is now for most Americans. Way lower. People making around $100,000 and less are paying probably around 10% on all income. After Trump's ridiculous tax cut goes away, everyone could be paying about 5%. Rich folks, making $10million should easily be able to pay $500,000.
As I believe the intellectual basis for a Flat Tax is dishonest from inception, I couldn't disagree more. But I'm not going to argue that here.
One of my biggest concerns with people who have too much $$ to spend is they get to spend it on whatever Which of course means they have an inordinately louder voice than the rest of us when it comes to their pet projects however ill-informed or in some cases downright stupid those ideas and concepts may be. I would much rather limit top end income to keep that from happening. Think the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, especially Elon Musk and we won't even go there with Trump.
@Jonathan, I am perfectly OK with "supporting your family" when it comes to tax rebates or public assistance to families. We owe it to ourselves to see that families are the future - and it is in our best interest to have children who are well-provided for, who don't need to worry about food or shelter, who can be safe and comfortable, so they can learn and grow into productive members of society. Support your family? Count me in.
Just a note, our armed services are rejecting the highest numbers ever due to bad health, including obesity but many other health reasons as well, most related to bad or insufficient diet. If the poorest among us are too sick to go to the front lines guess we'll have to start drafting all those jocks at the corporate gyms.
Why do we argue, debate, and hypothesize about a tax system that can never properly work. 50,000 pages (whatever number you want to use) doesn’t solve it. Scrap the income tax.
You're not going to get a lot of attaboys with that one except maybe from the far right. Both are regressive and therefore benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
Exactly! My proposal for income tax is to exempt the first $50,000 of income from taxation, assess a 20% tax on the next $50K, up to $100K, 40% for $100-200K, 60% for $200-500K, 80% for $500K - $1M, & 90% for additional income beyond $1 million. This would make the income tax far more progressive & fair, be easy to calculate, lower income taxes for the majority of Americans, all at the lower end & middle, leave more spending money in the pockets of lower income people that they can spend on small businesses, boosting the local economy, reduce the destabilizing disparity in wealth & power, & increase substantially the overall revenue to the federal government, which it could use to help solve our many serious problems, address climate chaos, improve healthcare, reduce poverty & homelessness, & strengthen safety nets.
I am not convinced that just addressing a more “fair” taxation on income will solve the problem for lower and middle class. $100K sounds like a nice income today but in reality does not go that far without some additional attention to corporations who control the cost of the basics, food clothing and shelter with increasing costs across all segments for hard working Americans and yet record profits that do not match that need to increase cost of goods except greed. That has to be figured into this equation as well. Can someone smarter than me explain this, or did I miss something?
Corporations should also be taxed on a progressive basis. After all, they're "people", right?
It is somewhere above $100K, close to $120K, I believe, when taxes using my system equal the current system. Everything below that figure would have a lower income tax by my system, & everything above it would pay higher taxes.
This is just 1 aspect of taxation I would apply. I would at least consider using wealth taxes, a windfall profits tax, fees on greenhouse gases, raising the gasoline tax, assessing taxes on meat & plastic, taxing large financial transactions, closing tax loopholes, doing something about tax havens, if possible, etc.
Some of the additional revenue could be used to improve conditions for those in need & provide more secure safety nets, including universal healthcare.
What do you think? Is it time for a wealth tax, or even something more drastic?
Answer: Yes, it's way past time. Return to something effectively close to the tax system in operation during the Eisenhower years, with whatever modifications are necessary to get around the gaping loopholes that permit the monstrously wealthy to avoid paying taxes.
We don't even have to go that far back...prior to Eisenhower's presidency, i.e. during WWII, the rate went to 94% for a single person making more than $200,000 (back then the government and the citizens believed in paying for a war!) during Eisenhower's 8 years in office, the highest marginal tax rate was 91% for couples making $400,000 or more per year. In 1954, the marginal tax rate dropped to 72% for a single person making $413,200 or more per year.
Currently, the top marginal tax is 37% for single filers making $539,900 or more and $693,750 for married couple filing jointly.
Income taxes can easily be avoided by the very wealthy. They can minimize their income and borrow against their wealth to finance their lavish lifestyles. Or if they do need income they buy tax exempt municipal bonds. Raising income tax rates makes no difference to billionaires. Even under the Eisenhower rates the taxes collected were nowhere near what the rates would indicate.
Raising income tax rates does affect high income earners, but not the billionaires of this world.
A wealth tax is the best of ideas, but is also the worst of ideas. I'm totally on board with taxing the wealthy, but let me ask, how do we define wealth? Who will count the wealth, and exactly what wealth counts?
Say I'm a wealthy middle-aged entrepeneur. Among other things, I have an art collection that includes a Picasso, a couple DeKoonings, maybe a Pollack and a few Warhols. My wife has more classical tastes, so she has a couple old masters. We're now talking hundreds of millions of dollars. But exactly how much for tax purposes? Who'll be appraising these? For that matter, who even knows we have them?
What about my yacht and my jet? Are we talking replacement value, depreciated value or real market value? How about my portfolio? Its value fluctuates by the second (actually more often than that). Did I mention my real estate in Kuala Lumpur? And did you know that I have several pieces of antique furniture, including an original Hepplewhite dresser?
All of this is just an ordinary guy's fantasy of wealth, but you get the point. And if there is a practical answer to all the above, who's going to review all the inevitable appeals? And what federal legal department will be equipped to handle litigation from multiple billionaires?
The idea of a wealth tax in America reminds me of middle school, when a bunch of us kids would get together and gripe about Billy. "He thinks he so smart. We're gonna get him and he'll be sorry." Then we'd hatch some elaborate plot with no chance of ever getting even past step one.
But hey, it sure did help us get through the afternoon just thinking about it.
Jerry, I had understood that the wealth tax, quite straightforwardly, calls for a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts valued between $50 million and $1billion and 3% on holdings over $1 billion.
Given the revenue said tax would generate and the mighty small segment of the population affected, my tendency leans towards streamlining its implementation as a means of helping the policy to work.
Jaime, You will note that Jerry, who is part of this thread, posed additional concerns, to which I responded. If you’re interested, as of this writing, that exchange is directly below.
Thank you, Barbara. That sounds good, but who determines what someone's net worth is? And what's included? I'm not against the idea. Really, I love it in theory. I just don't see how it'd be computed since wealth is held in so many different forms. And if you start "wealthy" at $50 million, there must be at least 100,000 people in that category.
Who would administer collection, the beleagured IRS? I mean they're currently bragging about having enough people to answer the phone, well most of the time. Again, I love it. But honestly it just seems pretty unwieldy.
Jerry, Starting with “the beleaguered IRS,” I would note that the Inflation Reduction Act includes funding for an additional 87,000 IRS agents. That said, while, admittedly, a wealth tax is difficult to administer, I would submit, contrary to proposals I’m aware of that call for no exemptions, indeed, for good reason given the obvious loopholes, that perhaps we’ll have to consider exemptions that include artwork, antiques, and the like.
Clearly, I don’t have a ready answer except to state, that when I weigh the costs and benefits of instating a wealth tax incrementally, I favor getting something done despite the pitfalls.
Now what if there was a sales tax on the purchase of a Warhol. Value is established with the sale, the government collects the tax from the vendor and the government has no need to know where I work and how much I earn.
I believe it does have a right to know what you make, what expense the vendors incurrs and where you live. You could be hiding a drug mill in your basement, or anything else on the planet. It’s a given, that the wealthy hide their money and purchases! Look at TFG or Musk .
I find it so sad that anyone thinks the government has the right or need to know how much money I earn or how I earn it. That’s my business and no one else. (Illegal activity is another issue.). Income tax necessitates their reason for citizens to report income.
Sales tax voids their need to know. When a vendor collects and remits tax on the sale of a painting for example, they don’t report who paid what amount on each transaction. The sales tax return is reported in the aggregate. They are subject to audit to determine if all is accurate. I’ve done business in several state and some states are very aggressive in monitoring sales tax collection and some not so aggressive.
I'm glad you asked, Jack. I've sold art (at earth-bound prices), and always collected/paid sales tax. So I'm assuming the same rules apply at the multi-million dollar level.
In San Francisco, the rate is 8.63%. So the sale of a $10,000 painting yields about $863 to be split among state, city and county. A $10,000,000 sale currently raises $86,300 from the buyer. The seller, the broker, the gallery or auction house and sometimes even the artist and the artist's manager, all pay income taxes to the state and the feds on their profit. The truckers who pick up and deliver the painting pay income tax, as do the framer, interior designer, and the team that finally hangs the work on the wall. That's how it is today.
You advocate eliminating the income tax altogether, making up for lost revenue with a national sales tax. You're a common sense guy. Have you done any computations to determine what sales tax rate would be needed, in addition to the 8.63% already in force, to avoid adding to the national deficit?
A great question. And an extremely hard one to answer. We’ve been trying to answer the same question about income tax rates, exemptions, deductions, what earnings are taxable and which ones are not, and on and on for decades. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think we’ve landed on any consensus.
From what I read, the national sales tax rate needs to be 25 to 30%. Sounds like quite a bump to your weekly budget, but remember that your take home pay is also significantly more without withholding & Social Security.
Have I done any calculations? No, I’m too busy withholding taxes from employees or paying a service to handle it for me, making deposits, and sitting at the kitchen table struggling with applying this year’s tax code to my modest self employment profit, a couple of rental properties, my wife’s W-2 earnings, 401(k) contributions, IRAs, deductions, . . . You get the picture and I suspect you do the same thing.
What a burden on the citizenry. I’m a reasonably intelligent guy will fairly good financial skills and background. I shudder to think how an individual with limited tax preparation skills wallows through this quagmire.
Just think, a national sales tax would:
- tax consumption and use, not production
- off the grid, non tax payers would now contribute to government revenue
- it WILL create another, different underground economy to monitor
- it’s private!!! There’s no need for the government to know our business; where we work, what we do, or how much we earn doing it.
Can a calculation be made? Sure. And the estimate of revenue will be easier to determine than how much income tax will be collected. And then the federal budget can be prepared from the top down. Hey, there’s an idea. Adjust our spending to our income and not the other way around.
Capitalism is regaining control over politics and government because of increase in corruption amongst politicians . Looking at the huge amounts of donation and fund-raiser money going into politics and elections, this cannot be a surprise and likely is the result of deliberate strategy driven by the robber barons to regain control over government. Big business is more than happy to support. Force them to "donate" to the people via a fairer tax system and stop them donating to politicians.
A deliberate strategy driven by Republicans for the robber barons to regain control over government. Citizens United was brought by Republicans, decided by Republicans, applauded by Republicans, and defended by Republicans to remove all practical limitations on rich people donating to (buying) our elected representatives. Until Republicans are voted out we will not have any limitations on campaign spending and so will have very little control over our government.
The robber baron families have been chipping away at every protection afforded the middle class by FDR since the attempted coup against FDR in the 30s. It’s been purposeful and slow, but they have now achieved their goals. They must be stopped by whatever means necessary. CAPITALISM MUST BE REGULATED AGAIN. Wealthy individuals and corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.
*Capitalism. You cannot control psychopaths with regulations. Capitalism is inherently racist and misogynistic. Wealthy, white men created it. Money is worthless and it's only purpose is to oppress, suppress, control, abuse, torture, and kill us. Capitalism must die before it kills us all.
1) a wealth tax of 70% on all estate valuations over US $500million.
2) inability to give one's estate to one's children, relatives, friends or fellow fraudsters if that estate is more than US $1million
3) outlaw a corporation's ability to pay its board, CEO, COO and CFO more than 100 times the salary of its lowest-paid employee (this includes its janitors)
4) outlaw all stock buybacks, especially if a corporation has gotten any taxpayer donations in the previous 36 months
5) mandatory and lengthy prison sentences for anyone who is convicted of 1-4
I love 1, 3, 4 and 5. 2 is a non-starter. I would like your cut--offs or thresholds to have some method to them rather than absolute values but definitely on the right track. Personally I want the graduated income tax rates to be raised dramatically as well as elimination of so many deductions available only to the very rich. They likely won't even miss the income.
GrrlScientist, While your proposal hits some of the right notes, I hardly would label it “modest” To start, I would replace #1 & #2 with a provision that lowered the current $12.92 million estate tax exemption to, say, $5 million, where it stood as of 2017. Additionally, I would add provisions to increase tax rates for yearly income that exceeded, say, $200,000 while eliminating tax loopholes and unwarranted deductions.
Postscript: Presuming in #1 you meant a wealth tax on the net worth of households and trusts, I would note that progressive Democrats have called for a 2% annual tax on holdings between $50 million and $1 billion and 3% over $1billion.
Instead of prison, I'd prefer to see ALL their assets seized. For those people that is a far more painful and demeaning punishment than any prison could provide. After all when they've served their sentence they just go back to their previous luxurious lifestyle, what punishment is that? I think your tax rate of 70% is too high, that encourages people to live elsewhere, that's why so many wealthy left Great Britain in the latter part of the 20th century.
I have longed believed that RICO can actually fit in to many of these prosecutions. There was a papertrail in 2008 that might have made a good case - so that way we get the best of both worlds: stripped of their ill-gotten gains and incarcerated.
Fay, I like the idea of seizing assets as well as a prison sentence. I am not sure what should be done with those assets, but I suspect we could figure something out.
I have plenty of ideas. One is to use them for address climate chaos (I would seize assets of all fossil fuel companies & their executives & political & media sycophants that waged disinformational propaganda denying the harm that they knew their products would cause for the climate), another is to address poverty & homelessness, improve our education system, provide universal healthcare, etc.
Girl Scientist, I like your proposal except perhaps the gift to offspring which might need to be a bit higher if there are circumstances that it would take more than a million to support the land or house being passed down. I would be willing to go for 5 million and if it is a corporation or company the person owns, to keep it intact, some other arrangements may need to be made so workers wouldn't be out of work and the supply chain not interrupted. I know people smarter than I in this stuff could figure that out if we as a nation were really serious about making these essential changes in our tax system.
What would you do with an estate worth 10,000,000 left to 3 heirs. The deceased was a farmer and the value of his estate is mostly in the land. Would you give the heirs an exemption as long as they use the estate for agriculture or demand they sell it to pay taxes? If they sell, who will buy? What about their heirs if something should happen to the heirs within the next year or so and they can no longer farm the estate? What happens if they go in debt and need to sell part of the land to pay the debt?
Maybe if the heirs don't want to sell the farm, they could be allowed to pay the tax on it over time. But they only get the time if the estate is their principal residence or if the land is used for agriculture or conservation. The tax comes due in the tax year when they sell. (I should add that I suggested that the tax start at inheritances in excess of $500k, but given current political realities, probably that number would be negotiated to something higher if this general idea were legislated into law.)
I don't think you've thought this through. The object is to prevent family farms from being sold to the highest bidder and the heirs end up working for the new owner. Can you imagine the feeding frenzy when the neighbors hear Joe Framer is sick under this plan?
What happens when a privately owned defense industry factory faces the same circumstances?
As I said, heirs can keep the farm and pay the tax in reasonable increments over time if they like. The heirs wouldn't be forced to sell. If you think it is important, owners of defense industry factories could also be allowed to pay the tax gradually over time if they don't want to sell it right away.
Sometimes it is claimed that it is important for people to be able to accumulate wealth so they are motivated to work, but that rationale does not apply to heirs. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much of a rationale for allowing people in our system to have substantial amounts of inherited wealth without requiring any contributions to society. We ought to minimize inherited wealth in the interests of social justice.
Having just gone through the settlement of a trust/estate of my parents who died forty years ago I learned that your example is not correct. If the estate is settled soon (?) after the death of the person, the basis for calculating taxes is usually the value of the estate when the individual died. Thus, the heirs would not owe taxes on the inheritance. There may be a maximum amount allowed for this law to apply, but it would likely apply for a $10 M estate. Mine was settled late, so we had to pay considerable taxes. The previous trustees who have since died were slackers.
YES!!!! We need a wealth tax to bring all Americans out of poverty. We need a middle class that is also a median income class. No we shouldn't deprive the weal.thy of every penny, except those who have gained that wealth through stealing and cheating, those should be deprived of all wealth and let them try living at the bottom of the heap. We also need to reevaluate what is really valuable and what is merely entertainment. I'm not suggesting that entertainers and sports figures shouldn't have above average incomes, they just don't need obscene wealth. Medical doctors, scientists who are working on the betterment of life should be more valued than a quarterback or a singer.
"...except those who have gained that wealth through stealing and cheating" ... that becomes extremely difficult to adjudicate, and raises the question of what is legal and what is right. Wealth is proof of some level of complicity in subjugating others.
Capitalism is a failed theory - as it has made rich - richer, poor - poorer, and poor thrown into the gutter without no tomorrow. Capitalism has bred robber barons, trained how to cheat government tax-mechanism and evading taxes to become mega-rich classes. Of course, wealth distribution is so unequal - the poor have to wait in soup queues to get their square meal and sleep under the highway bridge tunnels to escape to harsh weather.
Nicky, I’m still trying to figure out why all incomes shouldn’t be equal — that is, why some workers get million$ in salary while others, such as undocumented workers, receive below minimum wage. The usual argument for grossly unequal wages is that some people’s work provides more benefit to society: the brain surgeon who removes a tumor and saves your life is surely worth more than the janitor who cleans your hospital room, right? But countering this view is the observation that people work according to their natural abilities, which they did not themselves invent — these are the “God-given” attributes that make, for example, a Mozart, who claimed that the music he wrote consisted merely of transcribing what magically appeared in his brain. The fact that 500K+ Americans are living in the streets, homeless, points to the gross injustice of unequal wages and wealth misdistribution that is impossible to fix from a capitalist’s point of view.
Wages indeed match the contribution and output, and also services, to society and how society benefitted. These matters - god biz doesn't come to the equation - like in the medieval Middle Eastern desert tribal nomadic, ultra-primitive, ultra-illiterate times when people lived in tents and their needs were, of course, limited.
Yes, what you describe is an efficient economy. If we had an effective (as opposed to efficient) economy, those 500K people living in the streets would have homes. That’s where ethical values (the god biz) comes into play.
Don't know if there needs to be a wealth tax, but there certainly needs to be a tax system where everyone, including the people known as corporations, pay their fair (fare) share. Closing tax loop holes would be a good start, as well as campaign finance reform to get $$$ out of politics so those other than the rich can run for office. But as long as the foxes guard the henhouse ..........
Here are some many ways to become a billionaire: Obtain generous govt handouts such as govt. contracts and tax breaks, (Musk), known as socialism for the rich. Paying minimal or no corporation tax (Bezos). Pay your workers the minimum that you can get away with (Walton family & Bezos).
I am 78 and watched the downfall of the common American family. They have list ground until now when it has become almost impossible to own a home and still
live a life. I voted for Reagan, but when ‘trickle down’ became a thing, I knew I had made a big mistake. Trickle down would never happen. To witness the result, just drive down streets and notice how people can’t even paint their homes. Homeless people was not even a thing when I was a kid.
Something else we can put on Reagan, closing down the mental hospitals and letting patients try to take care of themselves on the street. Some of these people couldn’t or wouldn’t take their medications even if they could get them. Reagan was a looser for Americans!
As a follow up to your enlightenment message I found another warning on Wikipedia.
This is the abyss from which there is no return.
On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. (...) Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. (...)
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
Keith Olson ; Remember 'Total information awareness'? Have you read the book Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden? With the 'intelligence' capability our government has, I could not, and do not think it is possible that the NSA did not see Jan 6 coming. They know more about US than we do. Snowden said that the corporations have taken over the NSA. With recent expose`s of the FBI, it seems plausible. Hey, look at the Supreme Court! Corrupted, most likely, by money!
A wealth tax, yes. A graduated income tax, yes. A strong application of antitrust laws, yes. A hefty tax on stock buybacks, yes. There are a number of ways to reduce the debt, corporate power, and the size of a rich man's ego. For the latter I suggest ignoring them, after you apply the tax.
The cap on social security tax should be eliminated and for every dollar earned a worker should pay into the system. The tax rate should be reinstated for corporations and make them pay more than 20% when they’ve already received more tax breaks than any individual. Finally President bife s idea of raising the tax rate on very wealthy individual should be enacted. Those people make money on the backs of poor Americans and they should pay for them if they’re not going to pay them fair wages, which they do not.
All true. Throughout my working career the cap was raised more than once. I believe there shouldn’t be a cap at all. Having a cap on social security reinforces the beliefs of the very wealthy that they owe nothing to society or their country.
And, they should eliminate the WEP for those of us who made our life's work in the deep state. Not all of us used our positions to enrich ourselves in other ways.
What is WEP?
Windfall Elimination Provision. It reduces one's Social Security benefits if you worked for a short time in a job that ultimately paid you a retirement benefit hat was not subject to FICA, whether that job was in the US or in another country. If in another country, one's Soc Sec benefit it also reduced because the fewer number of years you paid into FICA -- they double dip on you. The WEP is also rigged if one worked overseas in that the recipient bears all the risk of currency exchange fluctuations on the foreign "pension" and which rate the admin chooses to initially and forever use.
Also when one does not pay fica tax as happens with railroad pensions then u must pay for medicare coverage. Premiums r based upon the amount of pension .income..minimum $299.00 per month
Windfall Elimination Provision - an amount that is cut from you ellegible Social Security benefit because you worked for state or local government. In my case I get about 40% of what I would get if I hadn't worked for the State.
That’s not fair in anyway I can think of.
Yuck- I agree with you.
Well said 👏
The conservative Switzerland has no cap on its equivalent of Social Security.
Corporations need to be heavily taxed on stock buybacks. And penalized if their top management make more than 10 x what the lowest worker in the company make.
Now that I can totally agree with
I’ve thought this many many times. I’m sure those people on the floor should make at least what the man upstairs makes for making a couple of calls and then goes out for a three hour lunch and never goes back to the office cause he has a racket ball date after his hard day at the office!
Gayna, I agree with you. It is time to get the very rich to pay their proper share of the money that supports this nation, including them, the roads they need, the transportation system, and the workers they don't pay well enough for survival, etc. It is time! We just keep pushing it down the road, but even Republican constituents need to start demanding their reps vote for that, even if it means those reps will have to pay more, which as servants of the people, they should, right after they are made to report all the wealth that comes to them.
I like the idea that if someone or some entity makes money from doing business in this country, they should have to help support our infrastructure and our markets that permitted them to do so.
When we buy most products made elsewhere, some foreigner profits. Tax them.
I also like the idea that tax evaders should be identified and penalized.
Eliminate income tax and replace with a sales tax. Tax consumption not production.
Sales tax is not income adjusted except that it lessens purchasing power of those with fewer dollars, nope, regressive.
Jack, I certainly can’t agree with that proposition. You would be taking a much higher proportion of the wages of the middle class and lower class of funds they need. While the wealthy Are not so burdened. A progressive income tax is by far the more equitable approach.
And how then would we tax capital gains (stocks, etc)?? The majority of wealth accumulated by the ultra rich isn't used to purchase shoes. Unlike the rich who just accumulate wealth and must be taxed higher somehow, the middle class is the class who spends 100% (and more) of its income.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e2352f43-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/e2352f43-en
So the rich can get more obscenely rich on the backs of the middle class.Teddy Roosevelt destroyed their power. Now he is disowned by his own party. Tax the rich.
Greg, I don’t like the phrase “tax the rich” It sounds like class warfare. I prefer the phrase “everyone should pay their fare share”. A poorer person should not have to pay a larger percentage of their income than a wealthy one.
The term “class warfare” is just a euphemism for let the rich get even more obscenely wealthy. When wealth is so concentrated as it is today, revolution breaks out, like in France and Russia. That’s class warfare. And the rich always lose.
Oh SURE. THAT would REALLY help:(.
You are correct. I never was good at sewing, the thread always got tangled.
I hope you meant that as a joke. Sales tax should be 0% for essential items food or paper products. If we could define "junk food & beverages, a sales tax at the local level might be defendable. The most regressive tax costs low earners inequitably.
Obviously you didn't see what I said above. No taxes on the necessities of life.
Sorry, I was referencing Jack Lee's comment. I think South Dakota taxes all sales but has no income tax. Other states also tax all sales. I also think necessities should include diapers (baby & adult).
I think she was referring to the other commentator, Mr Lee.
Regressive. But can add a small sales tax on certain products not made in US.
Jack that's going to be a big problem considering that the rich could easily buy things out of the country it's a little class and specially the poor were being paying 30% sales tax. That's just dead wrong. You should have known that though it's a republican idea
No, people in poverty would bear the greatest part of that system. Tax the rich. I remember Dwight David Eisenhower set upon taxing the ultra wealthy to start funding the highway system he envisioned across the nation. He gave us fair warning about the military/industrial complex. A good man for Americans!
Then SS could be eliminated, as it is funded by our payroll taxes. Just close all those loopholes.
And this is a positive? Eliminating SS? I'm confused. How does the proposal of sales tax v income tax affect payroll tax and downstream SS?
Oh, right, the 30% sales tax thing. There's "equity" for you.
Like watches, cars, yachts more than one house
No taxes on the necessities of life -- food, shelter clothing. Taxes on luxury items.
Certainly after the 2nd yacht. 🙂
Oh please. It’s not oppressive. Obviously no or minimal tax on basics: inexpensive clothing, most unprepared food, shelter. Or a tax pre-bate.
If John Doe purchases a $59 pair of shoes from DSW, minimal or no tax. If Brett Rockefeller buys shoes from Louis Vuitton . . .
Just cut to the heart of the matter with a progressive wealth tax. Let people pay back to the system in proportion to the benefits received.
The poor would starve.
" in proportion to the benefits received" How does income or wealth correlate to benefits received?
If all made roughly the same amount of money, you would be correct., Jack
But that is not even minimally the case. For example, if one is unemployed and does not receive UI benefits (nationally that turns out to be 72% of the unemployed and in some states more than 90%) and are living on savings no matter how meager, any sales tax rate is, relative to income, INFINITE. I live in a state with no income tax and relies heavily on the sales tax. Low-income workers, pay on average, 15-20% of their income in taxes (the lower the income within this bracket, the higher the effective tax rate) to the state while the very top of earners pay less than 1% of their incomes to the state.
May not be oppressive, but would be regressive, taking a larger percentage of a low-income earner's income. Wouldn't an awful lot of sales need to be taxed to replace income taxes? Progressive income tax seems more fair- arguments to reinstate that are going on in Alaska, as the oil money decreases.
Brett should get a credit for $59, shouldn't he? One must have (some) shoes. How about setting a limit on the number of pairs a person can own? The Imelda Marcoses of the world can pay an excess shoe tax for going over the limit on top of paying the sales tax.
A $59 tax credit for shoes. Sure, those types of exemptions need to be built in. A limit on the number of shoes someone buys, never. Isn't this a free country? If one can afford the purchase and the associated tax, there should be no limit to the number bought: shoes, suits, boats, guns, houses, whatever. An excess shoe tax would require a government accounting of my past shoe purchases. A privacy problem.
It’s criminal.
We do not need an income tax. Why are we so indoctrinated or enamored with taxing production, earnings, and profits? Check with Florida, Texas, etc. it works.
A tax that’s paid at the point of the transaction. Not at the kitchen table after spending hours preparing it.
And the underground economy. Forget loopholes (legal and illegal). How much income is not taxed due to cheats not reporting income? They love the current income tax arrangement.
Amen, Ms. Ruth
Awesome, straight to the point!
People who are building outlandish amount of wealth aren't being paid for their work through wages or salary. They are making their money through unearned channels, and taking loans against their net-worth, and paying no taxes at all. Increasing the taxes on people who earn their money through labor does nothing to hurt the robber barons. We need to break up their empires, and prevent them from protecting their ill-gotten gains through trusts and shell corporations, and then passing through their wealth to their heirs, who re-set the baseline by excluding unrealized capital gains from taxation. So, Gayna, I don't think that the guy who makes $200,000 a year in salary is the problem. It's the guy who makes $200,000,000, and pays no taxes
Does Amazon pay any taxes? Does Apple? No. But all of us suckers have to pay. Religious and cultural warfare to protect them won’t work.
I've never heard so much whining about the wealthy and making things equitable. Wouldn't true equity be taking the annual federal budget and collecting $6,000 from every man, woman, and child in the U.S.?
Where would people who live pay check to pay check get $6,000 let alone for each possible dependent? You must be blind to people who aren’t you. So cavalier.
Everyone keeps mentioning equity. It was a question, an example, not a suggestion.
That's a disingenuous definition of equity. Although I'd never advocate such, actual equity would entail a flat percentage, not a flat amount.
I could not disagree more. A percentage of what? Why is “income” the measuring stick? I think of it like voting. We each get one vote. True equity is sharing the cost of government equally. We each have one share of ownership of this entity we call our government.
It's called a regressive tax. A person with $12,000 income would be paying a 50% rate. A person with $12 million would be paying a rate of .005%. Most of the taxes collected in the US are regressive. The federal income tax isn't progressive enough to offset the regressive nature of the other taxes so our overall tax structure is regressive.
My my, Jack. You are quite the troll aren't you.
Jack Lee. No.
No. That takes from the middle class and gives more to the rich.
This discussion is worth the hour: https://youtu.be/8Ac1P89JMNM It's particularly timely, since PBS has just notified me that "The American Experience" is currently running a piece called "Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History," which is curiously similar to the title of Hartman's previous work "The Hidden History of Monopoly." Check 'em both out!
As a further thought:
I've always been on the fence on the electoral college. In discussions here, I've usually refrained from comment, except I may have mentioned "I'm not so sure" once or twice. Hartman has persuaded me that in view of its original purpose, the very mass media and social networking have rendered that reasoning obsolete. Therefore, I'm now totally on board with abolishing the electoral college.
Also: for anyone interested, Hartman provides the phone number for the Capitol switchboard - for anyone here that's wondered how to call:
Capitol switchboard. Ask for the office of any of your elected officials.
202-224-3121
UPDATE: Also at the end is a reference to the national debt. The question raised concerns who holds the debt. I've heard many things about that, but interesting is that it may be many of the debt holders, who keep collecting interest off the debt, >are the very ones< who are bringing up the national debt and threatening to force default. Figures!
Thus proving (if it needed to be done) that social media can be an influencer for good. Welcome aboard, DZK.
I don't think that social media being potentially a force for good was ever really an issue. However, social media is nonetheless a double-edged sword, having a >very< dark side that is >extremely< dangerous for everyone - just like nuclear fission and nuclear fusion!
DZK Thanks for posting about the upcoming American Experience! I've programmed my TIVO to record it.
ALSO:
People have banged-on here about neo-liberalism - that I prefer to hyphenate - since the forum was founded. For those who may be mystified by the exact nature of said econo-speak, here's a good, bite-sized discussion of exactly what said neo-liberalism entails: https://youtu.be/WLiH7Iv5sVs
True! In fact, the REASON we are having this conversation is precisely because business and industry refuses to pay good wages. Wages high enough to make it POSSIBLE to save for retirement. Gosh, if more people understood basic economics, we would be in a much better place.
Excellent ideas 💡
Absolutely!!!
Amen, Gayna.
Well, you can call it whatever you like, but I would like to see EVERYONE pay the same rate I pay, as a minimum. Eliminate the ceiling on earnings for FICA tax. If ONE pays 6.2% on nearly every penny they make, everyone should. No more free ride for those million/billionaires.
Absolutely. In fact, we live in an era where the use of our data for profit and private information has created great profit at the top of the food chain with no compensation for most of us. Their money is making them money so there is no way they should be allowed to be "free riders" through lack of contribution.
Ms. Anthrope, you have that right! The money keeps moving to the top of the food chain, but in a democracy that is not acceptable, especially as you mention, their money is making money to an extreme extent. We can stop that if we have a reformed tax code say, down to about 1,000 pages that is manageable and that covers the rich just as everyone else is covered. Too many tax lawyers have found ways to cheat the system with all the stupid loopholes and means for cheating provided in such a huge document as our current tax code. It's time this is fixed.
Why call it cheating? If the code allows the loophole , the tax treatment, the deduction, the tax credit, whatever; isn’t that just playing by the rules. I have the fiduciary responsibility to myself and the legal obligation to my government to pay the correct amount of tax per the code; no more or no less. Perfectly honest and definitely not cheating.
Because the loophole was 'bought' by lobbyists and passed into law by politicians, also bought. Legal and ethical aren't soulmates.
Then change the law if it's not ethical.
Mizz Anthrope. Heh. Rock on Ma’am
'same rate' implies a flat tax e.g. 10 or 20 or more percent. Graduated income taxes are not flat taxes. They ask more of those who have earned more. Which is why at one time the top graduated income tax was nearly 90% on a certain portion of an earner's income. Note: the 90% didn't apply to all the earner's income, just to the portion of that income over a certain threshold. Lower rates apply at lower threshold amounts.
I was simply referring to FICA tax. Everyone pays 6.2% of earnings into Social Security. Unless you make more than about $162,000. Then it's a free ride after that. Eliminate the ceiling. Eliminate insolvency. In fact, I bet you could double benefits for those with no retirement stipend.
Okay. It wasn't clear in your comment but I agree. No FICA free rides for millionaires/billionaires.
I would bet that you're right about doubling benefits. Maybe this is where Universal Basic Income comes into play as well. Not just for seniors. https://www.givedirectly.org/basic-income/
Jonathan, I agree with you that everyone above the poverty line should be paying that 6.2% into Social Security. It is a good investment for everyone and even the very rich should be contributing on all their wealth because they may need it sometime the way Republicans are playing with the debt ceiling and other things these days.
Well, right now, everyone who earns any money, pays 6.2% FICA, no matter where they fall on the poverty spectrum. I firmly believe we could double benefits for those in poverty, if the ceiling on earnings was eliminated. Think, if a person making $100,000 is paying $6200, then a person making $10million should pay $620,000 into Social Security. And there are a shocking number of people making over $10million these days.
I'll wager that there's not a single billionaire that pays any FICA tax at all. FICA only applies to earned income - wages and salaries. Increasing the threshold on FICA only hurts the upper-middle-class schmuck, not the obscenely rich.
Correct, the gazillionaires have less earned income than many.
It's loans on loans with interest $$
Perhaps we should be taxing all capital gains.
They still get around it by making sure to classify everything they earn over their "salary" as "capital gains" (distributions/stocks) for which they only get taxed at 15%-20%.
Stop putting a ceiling on those capital gains taxes and start taxing anything over a certain amount, can you imagine the squeal coming out of the board rooms, Wall Street and Congress
Agreed. It seems that money you don't have to earn should be taxed higher than hard-earned money actually worked for.
An easier solution would be to eliminate the earnings cap while leaving benefits as is. The extra revenue would solve the financial gap for 35 years, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service.
Right! However, I brought up doubling benefits as a response to the conservative's demand to reduce benefits. The best defense is a loud offense. That is the way to shut them up!
Jonathan is referring to FICA which has always been a flat tax, but those above a certain income don't pay into it. I agree with Jonathan. You, Terry are referring to an income tax which is and should remain a progressive tax. he more you earn the larger percentage you should pay. Even that needs to be capped at a reasonable amount. Paying more than half your income is not reasonable. So maybe cap at 40%, but we need to take out the so-called loop holes - right now the millionaire/billionaire class have loop holes so large they can pay $0, or $750, like the trumpster did through "creative accounting" a fancy name for cheating and stealing.
Fay, we should be calling what the rich do cheating and stealing which is what it really is. They cheated to get those loopholes included into the tax code, now, they use them to continue cheating and stealing. What a racket!
Yes, Jonathon cleared me up in a reply. See my reply to him.
And no, I disagree with your statement that paying more than half your income is not reasonable.. It really depends on the initial amount doesn't it? Taxes of 70% on 10,000,000 leaves the earner with 3,000,000 Taxes of 90% on 100,000,000,000 leaves the earner with 10,000,000,000 and taxes of 50% on 40,000 leaves the earner with 20,000. (A graduated tax table would make adjustments for the final tax due.....but for the sake of this discussion I greatly simplified it.)
Obviously the last example is unfair. But the first two? I believe most people would say Not so much. Right?
People could live a very luxurious life with that amount of income left. They wouldn't know what to do with any more money than that other than buy personal jets, giant yachts, elections, politicians & social media companies.
You look at income the proper way, by how much you have left after taxation, not just how much you have to pay. This is much more informative about the impact of taxes on individuals.
Terry, thanks for that clarification. I know there are a lot of people who see that 90% and immediately think it means the government is leaving the person only 10% of their wealth. I suspect a whole lot of wealthy people want people to think that so they will oppose a sensible tax rate for the very rich.
And, by the way, I would be in agreement to a flat tax, provided it was on ALL earnings. Right now, the wealthiest people are paying less than about a quarter the rate most folks pay on taxable income. I would be in favor of zero deductions and zero exclusion to income. Make everyone pay on all income. If you want to have 6 kids, great. But it isn't even reasonable to expect others to support your family like they do now. The thing is, I'm betting the rate would be lower than it is now for most Americans. Way lower. People making around $100,000 and less are paying probably around 10% on all income. After Trump's ridiculous tax cut goes away, everyone could be paying about 5%. Rich folks, making $10million should easily be able to pay $500,000.
As I believe the intellectual basis for a Flat Tax is dishonest from inception, I couldn't disagree more. But I'm not going to argue that here.
One of my biggest concerns with people who have too much $$ to spend is they get to spend it on whatever Which of course means they have an inordinately louder voice than the rest of us when it comes to their pet projects however ill-informed or in some cases downright stupid those ideas and concepts may be. I would much rather limit top end income to keep that from happening. Think the Koch brothers, Bill Gates, especially Elon Musk and we won't even go there with Trump.
The problem is what is considered an "earning". This is how rich get away with not paying taxes, as most of the money they have is invested.
@Jonathan, I am perfectly OK with "supporting your family" when it comes to tax rebates or public assistance to families. We owe it to ourselves to see that families are the future - and it is in our best interest to have children who are well-provided for, who don't need to worry about food or shelter, who can be safe and comfortable, so they can learn and grow into productive members of society. Support your family? Count me in.
Just a note, our armed services are rejecting the highest numbers ever due to bad health, including obesity but many other health reasons as well, most related to bad or insufficient diet. If the poorest among us are too sick to go to the front lines guess we'll have to start drafting all those jocks at the corporate gyms.
Why do we argue, debate, and hypothesize about a tax system that can never properly work. 50,000 pages (whatever number you want to use) doesn’t solve it. Scrap the income tax.
Glad to for the right replacement system. Whatta you got?
A national sales and use tax.
You're not going to get a lot of attaboys with that one except maybe from the far right. Both are regressive and therefore benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/who-bears-burden-national-retail-sales-tax
Exactly! My proposal for income tax is to exempt the first $50,000 of income from taxation, assess a 20% tax on the next $50K, up to $100K, 40% for $100-200K, 60% for $200-500K, 80% for $500K - $1M, & 90% for additional income beyond $1 million. This would make the income tax far more progressive & fair, be easy to calculate, lower income taxes for the majority of Americans, all at the lower end & middle, leave more spending money in the pockets of lower income people that they can spend on small businesses, boosting the local economy, reduce the destabilizing disparity in wealth & power, & increase substantially the overall revenue to the federal government, which it could use to help solve our many serious problems, address climate chaos, improve healthcare, reduce poverty & homelessness, & strengthen safety nets.
I am not convinced that just addressing a more “fair” taxation on income will solve the problem for lower and middle class. $100K sounds like a nice income today but in reality does not go that far without some additional attention to corporations who control the cost of the basics, food clothing and shelter with increasing costs across all segments for hard working Americans and yet record profits that do not match that need to increase cost of goods except greed. That has to be figured into this equation as well. Can someone smarter than me explain this, or did I miss something?
Corporations should also be taxed on a progressive basis. After all, they're "people", right?
It is somewhere above $100K, close to $120K, I believe, when taxes using my system equal the current system. Everything below that figure would have a lower income tax by my system, & everything above it would pay higher taxes.
This is just 1 aspect of taxation I would apply. I would at least consider using wealth taxes, a windfall profits tax, fees on greenhouse gases, raising the gasoline tax, assessing taxes on meat & plastic, taxing large financial transactions, closing tax loopholes, doing something about tax havens, if possible, etc.
Some of the additional revenue could be used to improve conditions for those in need & provide more secure safety nets, including universal healthcare.
What do you think? Is it time for a wealth tax, or even something more drastic?
Answer: Yes, it's way past time. Return to something effectively close to the tax system in operation during the Eisenhower years, with whatever modifications are necessary to get around the gaping loopholes that permit the monstrously wealthy to avoid paying taxes.
We don't even have to go that far back...prior to Eisenhower's presidency, i.e. during WWII, the rate went to 94% for a single person making more than $200,000 (back then the government and the citizens believed in paying for a war!) during Eisenhower's 8 years in office, the highest marginal tax rate was 91% for couples making $400,000 or more per year. In 1954, the marginal tax rate dropped to 72% for a single person making $413,200 or more per year.
Currently, the top marginal tax is 37% for single filers making $539,900 or more and $693,750 for married couple filing jointly.
Income taxes can easily be avoided by the very wealthy. They can minimize their income and borrow against their wealth to finance their lavish lifestyles. Or if they do need income they buy tax exempt municipal bonds. Raising income tax rates makes no difference to billionaires. Even under the Eisenhower rates the taxes collected were nowhere near what the rates would indicate.
Raising income tax rates does affect high income earners, but not the billionaires of this world.
Which is why a wealth tax, as has been urged by Warren & Sanders, is warranted.
Bingo! +1,000,000,000
A wealth tax is the best of ideas, but is also the worst of ideas. I'm totally on board with taxing the wealthy, but let me ask, how do we define wealth? Who will count the wealth, and exactly what wealth counts?
Say I'm a wealthy middle-aged entrepeneur. Among other things, I have an art collection that includes a Picasso, a couple DeKoonings, maybe a Pollack and a few Warhols. My wife has more classical tastes, so she has a couple old masters. We're now talking hundreds of millions of dollars. But exactly how much for tax purposes? Who'll be appraising these? For that matter, who even knows we have them?
What about my yacht and my jet? Are we talking replacement value, depreciated value or real market value? How about my portfolio? Its value fluctuates by the second (actually more often than that). Did I mention my real estate in Kuala Lumpur? And did you know that I have several pieces of antique furniture, including an original Hepplewhite dresser?
All of this is just an ordinary guy's fantasy of wealth, but you get the point. And if there is a practical answer to all the above, who's going to review all the inevitable appeals? And what federal legal department will be equipped to handle litigation from multiple billionaires?
The idea of a wealth tax in America reminds me of middle school, when a bunch of us kids would get together and gripe about Billy. "He thinks he so smart. We're gonna get him and he'll be sorry." Then we'd hatch some elaborate plot with no chance of ever getting even past step one.
But hey, it sure did help us get through the afternoon just thinking about it.
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Jerry, I had understood that the wealth tax, quite straightforwardly, calls for a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts valued between $50 million and $1billion and 3% on holdings over $1 billion.
Given the revenue said tax would generate and the mighty small segment of the population affected, my tendency leans towards streamlining its implementation as a means of helping the policy to work.
You describe the wealth tax Jeff Merkley was advocating. I suppose it's the one co-sponsored by Elizabeth Warren & Bernie Sanders. I'm for it.
Jaime, You will note that Jerry, who is part of this thread, posed additional concerns, to which I responded. If you’re interested, as of this writing, that exchange is directly below.
Thank you, Barbara. That sounds good, but who determines what someone's net worth is? And what's included? I'm not against the idea. Really, I love it in theory. I just don't see how it'd be computed since wealth is held in so many different forms. And if you start "wealthy" at $50 million, there must be at least 100,000 people in that category.
Who would administer collection, the beleagured IRS? I mean they're currently bragging about having enough people to answer the phone, well most of the time. Again, I love it. But honestly it just seems pretty unwieldy.
Jerry, Starting with “the beleaguered IRS,” I would note that the Inflation Reduction Act includes funding for an additional 87,000 IRS agents. That said, while, admittedly, a wealth tax is difficult to administer, I would submit, contrary to proposals I’m aware of that call for no exemptions, indeed, for good reason given the obvious loopholes, that perhaps we’ll have to consider exemptions that include artwork, antiques, and the like.
Clearly, I don’t have a ready answer except to state, that when I weigh the costs and benefits of instating a wealth tax incrementally, I favor getting something done despite the pitfalls.
Now what if there was a sales tax on the purchase of a Warhol. Value is established with the sale, the government collects the tax from the vendor and the government has no need to know where I work and how much I earn.
I believe it does have a right to know what you make, what expense the vendors incurrs and where you live. You could be hiding a drug mill in your basement, or anything else on the planet. It’s a given, that the wealthy hide their money and purchases! Look at TFG or Musk .
I find it so sad that anyone thinks the government has the right or need to know how much money I earn or how I earn it. That’s my business and no one else. (Illegal activity is another issue.). Income tax necessitates their reason for citizens to report income.
Sales tax voids their need to know. When a vendor collects and remits tax on the sale of a painting for example, they don’t report who paid what amount on each transaction. The sales tax return is reported in the aggregate. They are subject to audit to determine if all is accurate. I’ve done business in several state and some states are very aggressive in monitoring sales tax collection and some not so aggressive.
I'm glad you asked, Jack. I've sold art (at earth-bound prices), and always collected/paid sales tax. So I'm assuming the same rules apply at the multi-million dollar level.
In San Francisco, the rate is 8.63%. So the sale of a $10,000 painting yields about $863 to be split among state, city and county. A $10,000,000 sale currently raises $86,300 from the buyer. The seller, the broker, the gallery or auction house and sometimes even the artist and the artist's manager, all pay income taxes to the state and the feds on their profit. The truckers who pick up and deliver the painting pay income tax, as do the framer, interior designer, and the team that finally hangs the work on the wall. That's how it is today.
You advocate eliminating the income tax altogether, making up for lost revenue with a national sales tax. You're a common sense guy. Have you done any computations to determine what sales tax rate would be needed, in addition to the 8.63% already in force, to avoid adding to the national deficit?
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A great question. And an extremely hard one to answer. We’ve been trying to answer the same question about income tax rates, exemptions, deductions, what earnings are taxable and which ones are not, and on and on for decades. To the best of my knowledge, I don’t think we’ve landed on any consensus.
From what I read, the national sales tax rate needs to be 25 to 30%. Sounds like quite a bump to your weekly budget, but remember that your take home pay is also significantly more without withholding & Social Security.
Have I done any calculations? No, I’m too busy withholding taxes from employees or paying a service to handle it for me, making deposits, and sitting at the kitchen table struggling with applying this year’s tax code to my modest self employment profit, a couple of rental properties, my wife’s W-2 earnings, 401(k) contributions, IRAs, deductions, . . . You get the picture and I suspect you do the same thing.
What a burden on the citizenry. I’m a reasonably intelligent guy will fairly good financial skills and background. I shudder to think how an individual with limited tax preparation skills wallows through this quagmire.
Just think, a national sales tax would:
- tax consumption and use, not production
- off the grid, non tax payers would now contribute to government revenue
- it WILL create another, different underground economy to monitor
- it’s private!!! There’s no need for the government to know our business; where we work, what we do, or how much we earn doing it.
Can a calculation be made? Sure. And the estimate of revenue will be easier to determine than how much income tax will be collected. And then the federal budget can be prepared from the top down. Hey, there’s an idea. Adjust our spending to our income and not the other way around.
Capitalism is regaining control over politics and government because of increase in corruption amongst politicians . Looking at the huge amounts of donation and fund-raiser money going into politics and elections, this cannot be a surprise and likely is the result of deliberate strategy driven by the robber barons to regain control over government. Big business is more than happy to support. Force them to "donate" to the people via a fairer tax system and stop them donating to politicians.
Getting rid of citizens united would help
Getting rid of a Supreme Court that put this all in play is a must. Let’s get rid of this revolutionary tribunal.
Yeppp but lifetime appointments 😱
We have become a corporatocracy.
The most hurtful thing the SCOTUS has ever done is hand down the Citizens United ruling and that’s saying a lot, considering the last few years!
A deliberate strategy driven by Republicans for the robber barons to regain control over government. Citizens United was brought by Republicans, decided by Republicans, applauded by Republicans, and defended by Republicans to remove all practical limitations on rich people donating to (buying) our elected representatives. Until Republicans are voted out we will not have any limitations on campaign spending and so will have very little control over our government.
The robber baron families have been chipping away at every protection afforded the middle class by FDR since the attempted coup against FDR in the 30s. It’s been purposeful and slow, but they have now achieved their goals. They must be stopped by whatever means necessary. CAPITALISM MUST BE REGULATED AGAIN. Wealthy individuals and corporations must pay their fair share of taxes.
No, capitalism must die before it kills us all.
Unfettered capitalism must die!
*Capitalism. You cannot control psychopaths with regulations. Capitalism is inherently racist and misogynistic. Wealthy, white men created it. Money is worthless and it's only purpose is to oppress, suppress, control, abuse, torture, and kill us. Capitalism must die before it kills us all.
This comment is unnecessary and unworthy of response.
And yet you replied🤣
my modest proposals:
1) a wealth tax of 70% on all estate valuations over US $500million.
2) inability to give one's estate to one's children, relatives, friends or fellow fraudsters if that estate is more than US $1million
3) outlaw a corporation's ability to pay its board, CEO, COO and CFO more than 100 times the salary of its lowest-paid employee (this includes its janitors)
4) outlaw all stock buybacks, especially if a corporation has gotten any taxpayer donations in the previous 36 months
5) mandatory and lengthy prison sentences for anyone who is convicted of 1-4
I love 1, 3, 4 and 5. 2 is a non-starter. I would like your cut--offs or thresholds to have some method to them rather than absolute values but definitely on the right track. Personally I want the graduated income tax rates to be raised dramatically as well as elimination of so many deductions available only to the very rich. They likely won't even miss the income.
GrrlScientist, While your proposal hits some of the right notes, I hardly would label it “modest” To start, I would replace #1 & #2 with a provision that lowered the current $12.92 million estate tax exemption to, say, $5 million, where it stood as of 2017. Additionally, I would add provisions to increase tax rates for yearly income that exceeded, say, $200,000 while eliminating tax loopholes and unwarranted deductions.
Postscript: Presuming in #1 you meant a wealth tax on the net worth of households and trusts, I would note that progressive Democrats have called for a 2% annual tax on holdings between $50 million and $1 billion and 3% over $1billion.
Instead of prison, I'd prefer to see ALL their assets seized. For those people that is a far more painful and demeaning punishment than any prison could provide. After all when they've served their sentence they just go back to their previous luxurious lifestyle, what punishment is that? I think your tax rate of 70% is too high, that encourages people to live elsewhere, that's why so many wealthy left Great Britain in the latter part of the 20th century.
I have longed believed that RICO can actually fit in to many of these prosecutions. There was a papertrail in 2008 that might have made a good case - so that way we get the best of both worlds: stripped of their ill-gotten gains and incarcerated.
Fay, I like the idea of seizing assets as well as a prison sentence. I am not sure what should be done with those assets, but I suspect we could figure something out.
I have plenty of ideas. One is to use them for address climate chaos (I would seize assets of all fossil fuel companies & their executives & political & media sycophants that waged disinformational propaganda denying the harm that they knew their products would cause for the climate), another is to address poverty & homelessness, improve our education system, provide universal healthcare, etc.
Girl Scientist, I like your proposal except perhaps the gift to offspring which might need to be a bit higher if there are circumstances that it would take more than a million to support the land or house being passed down. I would be willing to go for 5 million and if it is a corporation or company the person owns, to keep it intact, some other arrangements may need to be made so workers wouldn't be out of work and the supply chain not interrupted. I know people smarter than I in this stuff could figure that out if we as a nation were really serious about making these essential changes in our tax system.
Instead of the estate tax, inheritances over $500k should be taxed as income for the heirs, at the same tax rate as earned income or higher.
What would you do with an estate worth 10,000,000 left to 3 heirs. The deceased was a farmer and the value of his estate is mostly in the land. Would you give the heirs an exemption as long as they use the estate for agriculture or demand they sell it to pay taxes? If they sell, who will buy? What about their heirs if something should happen to the heirs within the next year or so and they can no longer farm the estate? What happens if they go in debt and need to sell part of the land to pay the debt?
Maybe if the heirs don't want to sell the farm, they could be allowed to pay the tax on it over time. But they only get the time if the estate is their principal residence or if the land is used for agriculture or conservation. The tax comes due in the tax year when they sell. (I should add that I suggested that the tax start at inheritances in excess of $500k, but given current political realities, probably that number would be negotiated to something higher if this general idea were legislated into law.)
I don't think you've thought this through. The object is to prevent family farms from being sold to the highest bidder and the heirs end up working for the new owner. Can you imagine the feeding frenzy when the neighbors hear Joe Framer is sick under this plan?
What happens when a privately owned defense industry factory faces the same circumstances?
As I said, heirs can keep the farm and pay the tax in reasonable increments over time if they like. The heirs wouldn't be forced to sell. If you think it is important, owners of defense industry factories could also be allowed to pay the tax gradually over time if they don't want to sell it right away.
Sometimes it is claimed that it is important for people to be able to accumulate wealth so they are motivated to work, but that rationale does not apply to heirs. In fact, there doesn't seem to be much of a rationale for allowing people in our system to have substantial amounts of inherited wealth without requiring any contributions to society. We ought to minimize inherited wealth in the interests of social justice.
Having just gone through the settlement of a trust/estate of my parents who died forty years ago I learned that your example is not correct. If the estate is settled soon (?) after the death of the person, the basis for calculating taxes is usually the value of the estate when the individual died. Thus, the heirs would not owe taxes on the inheritance. There may be a maximum amount allowed for this law to apply, but it would likely apply for a $10 M estate. Mine was settled late, so we had to pay considerable taxes. The previous trustees who have since died were slackers.
YES!!!! We need a wealth tax to bring all Americans out of poverty. We need a middle class that is also a median income class. No we shouldn't deprive the weal.thy of every penny, except those who have gained that wealth through stealing and cheating, those should be deprived of all wealth and let them try living at the bottom of the heap. We also need to reevaluate what is really valuable and what is merely entertainment. I'm not suggesting that entertainers and sports figures shouldn't have above average incomes, they just don't need obscene wealth. Medical doctors, scientists who are working on the betterment of life should be more valued than a quarterback or a singer.
"...except those who have gained that wealth through stealing and cheating" ... that becomes extremely difficult to adjudicate, and raises the question of what is legal and what is right. Wealth is proof of some level of complicity in subjugating others.
Capitalism is a failed theory - as it has made rich - richer, poor - poorer, and poor thrown into the gutter without no tomorrow. Capitalism has bred robber barons, trained how to cheat government tax-mechanism and evading taxes to become mega-rich classes. Of course, wealth distribution is so unequal - the poor have to wait in soup queues to get their square meal and sleep under the highway bridge tunnels to escape to harsh weather.
Nicky, I’m still trying to figure out why all incomes shouldn’t be equal — that is, why some workers get million$ in salary while others, such as undocumented workers, receive below minimum wage. The usual argument for grossly unequal wages is that some people’s work provides more benefit to society: the brain surgeon who removes a tumor and saves your life is surely worth more than the janitor who cleans your hospital room, right? But countering this view is the observation that people work according to their natural abilities, which they did not themselves invent — these are the “God-given” attributes that make, for example, a Mozart, who claimed that the music he wrote consisted merely of transcribing what magically appeared in his brain. The fact that 500K+ Americans are living in the streets, homeless, points to the gross injustice of unequal wages and wealth misdistribution that is impossible to fix from a capitalist’s point of view.
Wages indeed match the contribution and output, and also services, to society and how society benefitted. These matters - god biz doesn't come to the equation - like in the medieval Middle Eastern desert tribal nomadic, ultra-primitive, ultra-illiterate times when people lived in tents and their needs were, of course, limited.
Yes, what you describe is an efficient economy. If we had an effective (as opposed to efficient) economy, those 500K people living in the streets would have homes. That’s where ethical values (the god biz) comes into play.
Don't know if there needs to be a wealth tax, but there certainly needs to be a tax system where everyone, including the people known as corporations, pay their fair (fare) share. Closing tax loop holes would be a good start, as well as campaign finance reform to get $$$ out of politics so those other than the rich can run for office. But as long as the foxes guard the henhouse ..........
It's time for a wealth tax.
Here are some many ways to become a billionaire: Obtain generous govt handouts such as govt. contracts and tax breaks, (Musk), known as socialism for the rich. Paying minimal or no corporation tax (Bezos). Pay your workers the minimum that you can get away with (Walton family & Bezos).
I'll leave others contribute more.
I am 78 and watched the downfall of the common American family. They have list ground until now when it has become almost impossible to own a home and still
live a life. I voted for Reagan, but when ‘trickle down’ became a thing, I knew I had made a big mistake. Trickle down would never happen. To witness the result, just drive down streets and notice how people can’t even paint their homes. Homeless people was not even a thing when I was a kid.
Something else we can put on Reagan, closing down the mental hospitals and letting patients try to take care of themselves on the street. Some of these people couldn’t or wouldn’t take their medications even if they could get them. Reagan was a looser for Americans!
Yup, how true. Section 8 housing and homelessness took its place. That’s called trickle down to misery and death.
Thanks. Spread the word.
The more you make, the more taxes you should pay. Everyone should pay their fair share. Common sense.
Definitely past time for a wealth tax. 💪🏼
As a follow up to your enlightenment message I found another warning on Wikipedia.
This is the abyss from which there is no return.
On August 17, 1975 Senator Frank Church appeared on NBC's Meet the Press, and discussed the NSA, without mentioning it by name:
In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. (...) Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left: such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.
If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology. (...)
I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
Keith Olson ; Remember 'Total information awareness'? Have you read the book Permanent Record, by Edward Snowden? With the 'intelligence' capability our government has, I could not, and do not think it is possible that the NSA did not see Jan 6 coming. They know more about US than we do. Snowden said that the corporations have taken over the NSA. With recent expose`s of the FBI, it seems plausible. Hey, look at the Supreme Court! Corrupted, most likely, by money!
I haven’t read it but I will. Thank You
Absolutely right. There’s already chatter on the internet that SCOTUS will scrub LGBTQ people from the web.
A wealth tax, yes. A graduated income tax, yes. A strong application of antitrust laws, yes. A hefty tax on stock buybacks, yes. There are a number of ways to reduce the debt, corporate power, and the size of a rich man's ego. For the latter I suggest ignoring them, after you apply the tax.