American Politics Discussion Thread

[ipecac]

Our ever declining cities need investment in these sorts of services and on my the government can do that.

But in practice, that the government will actually fix the decline it has presided over is a pretty dream.

[superdeath]

If you make over 100million a year (profit), that should all go towards food/healthcare for everyone. ( provided you arent actually reinvesting into your own company. If this is all money just sitting around..... )
If you make more in a single week than i will make in my lifetime ( profit ) , you shouldnt be allowed any deductions when it comes tax season.

I say this because the trickle down theory/laws that provide big business these tax loopholes only make them richer. It has been shown to not have much "trickle down" to the rest of us. The richest people/business's in the USA should pay far more % wise in taxes even after deductions than your average joe. No one needs 500million just sitting in a bank for their family to inherit. Especially when 50millon will do.


Healthcare is a human right. It needs to be paid for via taxes, and available to everyone. Our military budget is HUGE and it doesnt really need to be. Tone it down over the course of 20yrs to a reasonable 1st place in spending vs other countries, and not the next 10 countries combined. We. Should. Not. Be. The. World. Police. We dont need to spend millions/billions on new generation aircraft when the world is at peace like it is. Russia isnt going to attack us, China isnt going to attack us, the EU is our staunch ally, so who are those million/billion dollar jets attacking? M.A.D. Basically prevents warfare between the major nations still, so just pool the military money into cybersecurity ( which i believe is the new "battleground" ) and scrap the extra budget that the military has and give it to almost literally anything else.

/rant

[Jowy]

Tax avoidance and tax evasion amounts to about 600 billion a year in the US. It's not as big of a number as I expected before researching it, but still that's a lot of money. For reference the social security budget is 1000 billion.

The government and the justice system is supposed to set the checks and balances, but politicians are easily influenced by money. Even the president is just one of the crooks.

It's of course not just about taxes. It's also about enforcing and creating laws. Like breaking up monopolies or fining for breaking the law.

Class disparity is imo the single biggest problem in society. To have any chance to lessen the gap rather than increase it, corrupt politicians must be voted out. Only then can progress be made.

There is enough money to go around to have everyone live a happy life. But it is held by the very few at the top who are very unwilling to give anything back and aim to amass ever more of it.

[darrelljs]

the vast majority going to bureaucracy that is bloated and inefficient and unnecessary at best and actively counterproductive at worst.

There are many problems in this country that government is uniquely scaled to solve, however inefficient it may be.

Class disparity is imo the single biggest problem in society.

This attitude always surprises me. Surely poverty is a bigger problem? There's not much class disparity in, say, Cuba, but that's not a model I'd want to emulate. I wholeheartedly favor raising taxes on the wealthy to help fund programs which improve social mobility, but having uber rich is not a problem that needs solving.

Darrell

[darrelljs]

Tax avoidance and tax evasion amounts to about 600 billion a year in the US. It's not as big of a number as I expected before researching it, but still that's a lot of money. For reference the social security budget is 1000 billion.

Apparently the enforcement budget for the IRS was only $4.6B in 2018 (down from a high of $6.5B in 2010). The examination rate for returns fell by 40% over that period. CBO estimates a nearly 3X ROI for increasing by up to $4B annually.

Darrell

[Miguelito]

This is the broader reality, though.  The rise of the middle class, through factory and service jobs, is a historical aberration, not the new normal.  For the vast majority of human history, the vast majority of humans lived at barely subsistence levels.  It so happened that for a couple centuries, we had a situation where industrial machinery allowed average unskilled workers to leverage their labor to a profit.  Now that situation is dissipating as economies of scale and automation converge and the workers aren't needed.  

Again, you're not connecting the dots. If a large number of workers aren't 'needed', the only way to keep things stable in a wealthy democratic system is a lot of welfare. A welfare class, what you would call a 'parasite' class, is necessary.

I was wondering if the suggestion was to just accept the laws of history and revolt back to HR/Serfdom. Will take a good number of anarchy turns though,  not sure it's worth it.

Also a surprising amount of historical materialism in that perspective,  considering the speaker.

[T-hawk]

Yes, I don't actively seek deduction. I put everything that needs to be in and let it run.

If a millionaire is only paying 750$ in taxes, I can absolutely understand if people are angry about it. Especially because we know that some of Trump's past businesses were definitely shady like Trump University

This shows a complete and utter lack of knowledge about how taxes work.

Tax is based on income, not wealth.  Possessing a million dollars worth of wealth has nothing to do with it. What matters is how much you net-earned in a given year, after figuring in losses and deductions. If you think a millionaire should pay more taxes even with little net income, you are arguing for a wealth tax not an income tax - except you don't even understand your own position enough to state it in those terms. And wealth taxes don't work, because owners simply move assets to other ownership structures or jurisdictions without a wealth tax.

If you think the problem is that such a business loss should not be deductible from other income, that at least is a coherent position -- but a position that imperils millions of small business owners who stand to suffer that much more if their business fails. If you think the problem is that business-loss deductions should be forbidden only to millionaires, that is a wealth tax in disguise since first you have to define millionaire.

Also, where is the "shady" box on the 1040 form so the IRS knows to charge Trump more for previously running Trump University?

None of this shows any understanding of anything that actual tax policy can be based on.

[T-hawk]

That leads to the same effect, the state has less money, but somehow the tax evasion of the billionaire is "his right" while the jobless 'peasant' is a parasite who should just die as he costs only money anyway. 

... But besides any form of economic leaning I am a staunch defender of fairness. 

Besides that, why do you always finish your replies with answers to points no one made? ... You always paint everything black and white.

These are all related.

Who defines fairness?

It's not about black and white, it's about extrapolating the arguments to the extremes to see where they break down.

What stops the job-loser in your scenario from voting himself more and more of the billionaire's wealth in the name of equality, until the latter has no more than he does?  Wouldn't that be fair by your reckoning?

If I called you pedophile I am sure you'd be upset and if I told you then that you are only upset because there is most likely some truth to it... well, I am sure that wouldn't work out swell, would it?)

I have been called exactly that, in connection with My Little Pony stuff as another hobby.  I do exactly what I said - just state that that's false, and ignore anyone that chooses to persist in the delusion.

Here's an example to think about.  Remember the "shithole countries" remark from Trump a while back?  Did you notice that the reaction was universally "you can't say that", and nobody said "but those countries aren't shitholes"?

(I'm sounding more antagonistic than I mean to be. You're making reasonable points and I'm intending to respond with reason, even if the language sounds somewhat heated.)

[T-hawk]

Healthcare is a human right.

No.  Nothing that requires the consumption of the labor and services of another can be a human right.  No entity has a right to compel someone to be a physician and serve you.  That would be involuntary servitude.  People can choose to become doctors and you can choose to use their services.  That's it.  Compelling another to serve you can never be a human right.

That all said: health care CAN be socialized.  I'm not even opposed to that in principle.  It could be a collective function of government, like roads and electricity and transit and other such infrastructure.  These aren't and can't be rights, but we can choose to implement such things collectively, and could with health care as many other countries have more-or-less managed.

I'm against collectivized health care in the US on a practical rather than ideological level.  I don't think we'll be able to sensibly implement it.  It requires price controls, that's the bottom line.  If prices are not controlled, they just rise to capture and consume all the money injected by government - that's what happened with Obamacare, as well as other industries like college grants and housing subsidies.  And who actually just took a first step towards health care price controls?  Trump, with that recent executive order limiting markup on pharmaceutical drug prices.

Weirdly, Medicare for All is the proposal that may actually work, despite it seeming to be the farther-left proposal.  Medicare more-or-less works as it is because it has the power to set prices.  It doesn't fully work - it requires taxing all citizens to pay for just the old people - but it's actually the right starting point, in that it's got the necessary underlying principle and making it work is a matter of setting the numbers, compared to Obamacare that doesn't work because it just lets the prices escalate.

[ipecac]

I was wondering if the suggestion was to just accept the laws of history and revolt back to HR/Serfdom.

With technology fewer serfs are needed in the fields.

Also a surprising amount of historical materialism in that perspective,  considering the speaker.

I was just sharing for a moment the perspective of T-Hawk.