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I have no problem with the rich being taxed at a significantly higher rate than all of us, but how will this help everyone else? The government isn't going to lower taxes for everyone else. The government isn't going to spend the money more wisely. The government isn't going to give the rest of us money. The government isn't going to improve the existing programs that are in place, or create new programs to help people. What they will do, is find even more ways to line their own pockets, and the pockets of their friends and donors. Just a thought, but maybe we should address that first? Fix the government, and we can fix everything else.
And before someone starts in about how it's a particular party that's a problem, remember that almost every federal level politician is corrupt, and scamming the people. Just take a look at how many significantly increase their wealth while in office. It's staggering, and it's both parties. We need an overhaul of the system. That's where the fix needs to be.
I have a great idea! Let's not tax the rich until we improve our democracy. And let's not improve the democracy until we can get the rich taxed.
Even better, let's do nothing unless we can get all of the things working at once at the same time! Incremental changes are for fools!
/sarcasm
Taxing the rich does nothing until you can fix the government. Fix the government first, and you can fix the rest. The government is the rich, they aren't going to do anything that would impact themselves. Some of them talk a good game, but if push comes to shove, they aren't going to raise taxes on themselves.
The government aren't the rich. The rich buy and use government like pawns.
So all the millionaires in Congress aren't rich? Damn.
Not enough to be pulling the strings. The difference between a millionaire and a Billionaire is about a billion dollars.
Taxing the rich does nothing until you can fix the government.
If only we had some way to find the funds we need to overhaul the government.. oh well. Guess we'll just die or something.
So we can tax the rich for the money right? And where does that money go? Oh ya, to the government, who does whatever they want with it, making themselves, their friends, and donors, richer. That'll definitely help us /s
It takes money away from the rich. If the government puts that money into a big hole at first, that is fine by me. The decrease in wealth inequality in our society will be helpful on it's own. Every little bit helps, once we get better control of the government we can take those taxes and point them at something useful.
There's plenty of historical evidence that runs contrary to this (valid) cynicism.
Our interstate highway system is a very, very large and expensive undertaking that works reasonably well, environmental hazard that it is.
Our freshwater/blackwater systems, while no longer state of the art, were at a previous point an envy of the western world.
A lot of the cutting edge has been lost due to a focus on private industry achievements for individual gains, versus the older (less profitable) model of public service achievements for the benefit of all. This ties into both the tax, and govt overhaul points you're making.
One can just look around the world to see the benefits of the public model Vs private. Universal health care, quality of living standards for the poor (in both developed countries and upcoming counties like China), Norway's national sovereign fund, there are tons of examples where the public model has uplifted and improved the lives of the many Vs the rich and fortunate few.
Yes it's correct that private companies and individuals will run off and stash money overseas if you tax them; that's why public service are public run in the first place so that we aren't over a barrel and can tax these entities appropriately regardless of what they might do. At the end of the day their own greed will ensure they'll want to invest back into our countries where their investments are safe anyway.
We're in agreement. But there needs to be a limit to how much can be hoarded.
Made more than $100 million net as an individual this year? Here's a trophy, 100% taxes beyond that 100mill, and another year of the lovely public dog park having your name on it as thanks.
Exactly, I was commenting supporting you and I absolutely agree there should be limits too.
Enshitification isn't just an online thing, rather it's everywhere that some MBA got a promotion for cutting costs and services in order to make their wealthy masters even richer. We need to disincentivise hoarding wealth especially so that things stop defaulting and trending towards shit.
Ok, wasn't quite sure haha.
I think these guys are the same as actual hoarders, using dollars instead of old magazines etc. Do they actually use their own money, or just keep accruing ever more, ever faster?
All good. I thought that your reply was well written and it made me think about the reasons and examples in my own country of why well run and funded public services at better beyond just the fact that the collective we own them. So many of our formally public services have gone to absolutely hell after being privtized by our previous governments while getting ridiculously more expensive just to appease shareholders of them and it sucks.