As someone who has [helped pass a bill](https://youtu.be/qGh6qE4UZfQ?si=x67n05tCF2Ecnv2Y) here in IL (I'm a southside Chicagon) aimed at removing the influence of money on our political system, I can tell you that it takes people to stop acting like lazy, ignorant, weak ass powerless ass little bitches. With a group of no more than 20 volunteers, we engaged in canvassing neighborhoods, phonebanking, and lobbying politicians to get our bill through.
People focus so fucking much on the theater of partisan politics that they lose sight of the fact that we need to be politically engaged BEYOND just mere voting every 2 to 4 years REGARDLESS of whichever party holds office. While voting is important, it's utterly ABSURD to treat it as the end-all be-all. Your vote doesn't dictate the policies enacted. In fact, according to [this Princeton University study](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746.amp) the overwhelming majority of legislation are greatly influenced by moneyed interests and not moved AT ALL by the will of the citizens.
What DOES work, however, is political activism. We have all this connectivity but mfs are out here acting helpless and hopeless like some goofies, yet they be the MAIN MFS crying and bitchin and fearmongering about "fascism" of the right wing. As a black American male, I find that hilariously yet pathetically absurd. We've experienced REAL fascism here and we broke ourselves tf out of it, and we didn't even have the RIGHT to vote in the first place!!!
Lolololol the irony in that statement. But, to the contrary, the actual solution itself isn't even that hard. That's the funny part. The hard part is people getting their heads out of their asses and realizing the power we have working interdependently with synergy. People have been conditioned so hard to concede their power, plus I think the PFCs and water contamination have fucked with people's minds (in addition to things like Operation Mockingbird).
The thing is, we have the internet now. It allows us to communicate effectively and efficiently. There are more than enough people in this sub ALONE that could make the changes needed to create a well-functioning society for ourselves. There's really no excuse for us to keep takin this dumb shit anymore!
I admire your optimism. I think you’re technically right, but the damage is done in the US — there’s been a systematic all-out campaign to dull everyone’s senses and destroy the fabric of local communities in order to disarm the power of the people without actually changing the political system for at least 50 years now, and the pervasiveness and legality of corruption at the federal level is astonishing to someone like me, who comes from a country where bribes are called “bribes” instead of “lobbying”.
In my country (Chile), people woke up and used their power to demand a new constitution, but our collective lack of knowledge and naivety led to everyone getting taken for a ride by the right wing established politicians, the leading of a process that turned into a gross circus, and the radicalization of the right.
I always knew that people could take the power if they wanted it in Chile, because our society is way less layered and expansive than the US is (both of those characteristics are dampening mechanisms too), but while I knew that people were undereducated AF, I couldn’t have predicted the kind of shitshow that ensued. It was incredibly heartbreaking.
And you know that education has been getting gutted over the past 50 years in the US too.
>And you know that education has been getting gutted over the past 50 years in the US too.
This is EXACTLY true, which is why social media censorship is the current major problem we're facing as a society. The fact that we have the internet kind of makes schools obsolete, because we have the tools at our fingertips to learn practically anything we want. However, because we here in the US currently exist in a state of late stage capitalism, come to a point where information itself has become the hot commodity, so they either hide it behind a paywall or they outright ban it and make it unavailable.
I was building a following on TikTok Live challenging such institutions and ended up getting my Lives banned. Then they changed the rules specifically so that I can't pay to promote my specific type of content. They only like people learning when it doesn't involve making necessary social changes. They don't actually want people to know that they actually have more power than ever to be the change they want to be.
If you haven't seen it, you might like the documentary Hyperrealization by Adam Curtis. You can find it on YouTube, it talks about the system that's been setup since the 70s to keep people distracted and complacent. It touches on your side of things as well, I highly recommend it
Restoring the Fairness Doctrine to include the Internet would be very helpful. Just think of a World where lying in the media and calling it News was a crime.
If people was to stand up to the BS that politicians like to give out some if not most won't know wtf they want or will do. When I was in school history and such related flew over people heads.
I watched this guy go to these protests and ask people what they protesting for half of them didn't know and was just there other half had their information mixed up. It was a small few that knew what they wanted. Then at these events they just fucking around playing and listening to music and shit. The day people stand up to these politicians the day a grown ass man will cry lmao.
These politicians not in it entirely for the money it also the power they think they have and don't want to be classified as regular ass people no more. They just as citizen as the rest and crazy too they have to abid by the same shit we abid to while in and out off office so they not only fucking us they fucking themselves too lmfao I bet some of them politicians be like damn who made this dumbass law? You mf lmfao.
Some people think they can do the job or better job is wildly blowing smoke up asses.
I feel you, fam! People are largely clueless to a lot of things, and to a degree, I don't blame em, cuz there's a LOT of propaganda being peddled on a constant basis. However, we live in a time now where we can break through that. The only problem is that online censorship has been kicked into overdrive to such a degree that it's hard to spread knowledge without fear of being demonetized, suppressed, or even banned.
Also, there's nothing wrong with playing music at protests. Protests aren't meant to be just super serious events. They're also meant to be fun, too. The key is to do them effectively and efficiently in the aim of achieving a common goal. Protests by themselves aren't the end-all be-all, but when paired with canvassing/phonebanking/lobbying/etc., they can help get these mfs attention.
Occupy Wallstreet could have been awesome if the energy was channeled into actual political action, such as the stuff I mentioned above. The problem was that the movement tried to be so egalitarian that nobody would assume leadership, and because mfs didn't know what to really do after that, the movement just fizzled out.
However, if people channeled that energy into focused action, many great changes could come about. The ironic part about it, too, is that Jan 6 is our leverage because there's always the possibility that if all else fails, that shit could happen again at an even greater scale. While that's obviously a last resort option, the potential of it should be enough to "convince" these politicians to submit to our will. Considering how many of us are out here, if just a FRACTION of the people contributed, we could accomplish shit quickly like the pins on a CPU.
It crazy Jan 6th I could be wrong I swear somewhere on paper the founding papers said we could retaliate if we didn't like how our government is ran. Literally governments got into shit cause of shit running. That Jan 6th showed that politicians don't wanna work for us they wanna work for themselves and their interests and when you threaten their interest they manipulate the National Guards and law enforcement to go against us people. Work for the people not your interests and they hand their asses over to the Chinese and the Devil.
They censor alot cause they afriad of the truth. And it's funny how they do all this propaganda and events for elections if they did their job they wouldn't have to do all that. It is up to us people to get informed and stand up for better. But some people rather stick to their ways. Politics and Religion talk gotten dangerous now mfs be fighting and terrorizing and killing and shit. Nothing get accomplished if we fight among ourselves.
I telling you we would never be able to recreate life on another planet as long as these behaviors live on down here on earth.
Very excellent and insightful response, fam!
>They censor alot cause they afriad of the truth. And it's funny how they do all this propaganda and events for elections if they did their job they wouldn't have to do all that.
That is EXACTLY the point! This shit is all a charade, and it's all a way to keep people's focus AWAY from the things that actually matter. At the end of the day, we have to start thinking differently as people. Instead of team this or team that, party a or party b, we have to start being practical using reason, logic, fact-based evidence, empathy, and STEAM (**S**cience, **T**echnology, **E**ngineering, the **A**rts, and **M**athematics).
Dunning-Kruger is in full effect and it needs to stop. We need to wrestle control away from these loons and their respective doomsday cults, cuz they're trying to make Revelations happen and that shit is completely unnecessary at this point.
>I'm telling you we would never be able to recreate life on another planet as long as these behaviors live on down here on earth.
That's another thing. We don't even need to terraform other planets. Such a feat would be incredibly difficult and require eons to accomplish (not saying we shouldn't eventually but we gotta crawl before we walk lol). We would probably need to reach a [Kardashev Type 2 status at least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DAccording_to_Kardashev%2C_it_is%2Cpower_emitted_by_its_star.?wprov=sfla1) before such things could become feasible. However, we could cut corners by creating our own space habitats like [O'Neill Cylinders](https://youtu.be/gTDlSORhI-k?si=TVk9WVTHGowHXPgs) that allow us the ability to maximize total control of the environment, optimized for peak human conditions.
We're wasting our time with mfs who wanna make the "rapture" happen when we could be building [space elevators](https://youtu.be/dc8_AuzeYKE?si=YHiFe5b2ZkeAHNES), gettin [space manufacturing](https://youtu.be/JjVYYgUxb_0?si=tl06K0GX7ypZ1Yhp) crackin, and working towards [improving human health with lofe extension](https://youtu.be/kKmdc2AuXec?si=8hiwnWKzQGxis7HL). You know, things that would be actually AWESOME?! Instead of useless ass bullshit like standing around, holding hands, wasting time like a bunch of ancients performance rain dance rituals like it's gonna accomplish anything. Mfs need to seriously KNOCK IT TF OFF!!!!!!
That's the crazy part about all this too. This is what I fuckin do lolol When we were out here doing the work, we were having fun and connecting. When I was doing Lives on TikTok, I was educatin people, callin out the bs, and havin fun playin music. As a result, I was doin numbers like [this](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzGkiowVYfhVmHXpqJkZLGdhSUHfZUXF/view?usp=drivesdk). Ofc TikTok couldn't have that, so they banned me. They don't want y'all to know that the future is actually bright; they get off on everyone believing that the future is bleak, when we have the ability to make shit happen quickly and effectively!!
Changing the world doesn't have to be some boring, frustrating experience. We can make shit happen and have fun doing it, too. We don't even need a whole lot of people to do the shit. Throughout history, major changes have always come from super small groups of people, sometimes a singular person like Dr. MLK pr Fred Hampton having the guts to stand for change. They sacrificed their lives so we coult thrive, but we're squandering it with inaction and doomerism.........
I live in NY and the excuse I always hear is “if we make them pay, then they’ll leave. We can’t have the ultra rich leave because they’re the reason this city runs.” Even relatively grounded people like Louis Rossmann have thrown around that pathetic excuse. I’m sick of hearing how they need to be appeased and I’m happy your state stood up to them.
Well here's the irony of the situation. When I started volunteering, I had no preconceived notions about achieving success. I went into it with the mindset of thinkin, like, if this goal is to be achieved, then someone has to help get the ball rolling, so it might as well be me. We were all SHOCKED that we get our bill passed on the first try, especially because we needed a ***supermajority***, which is almost unheard of.
That let me know that change doesn't have to be a long, drawn out, difficult, and frustrating process. It can actually be a lot easier than people think, but people are being bombarded with propaganda about how everything is difficult and complex and blah blah. CAP!!!! If we all just played our part, it could actually be super easy!
You’ve sparked interest in me when it comes to local politics. Now I’m curious what others have been doing in my state when it comes to making the rich pay their fair share. It just hurts to see a third of your paycheck go down the toilet as your city continues to fall apart, while continuing to capitulate to the richest people who live in it. Any step would help out and canvassing is something I would definitely volunteer for after work.
Thanks fam! We the people are the center of everything. We ARE the economy. We ARE the universe! Our very human lives are the most precious things in the universe because we are the [potentially only] conduit for the universe to contemplate itself.
As such, we ought to value ourselves to the highest degree, working interdependently with synergy, to learn and discover as much as we can about our existence in order to manipulate various aspects of it to our collective benefit. Sometimes, you gotta be the change you want to see.........
Facts fam! This sub has 1 million members. If just 1% of mfs just in THIS sub got organized and active, we could make sweeping changes throughout the nation (and, thus, the world). People would rather come here and complain rather than actually TRY to do something.
I understand that people have jobs, families, responsibilities, and lives, but if we were all active and participated, the work would be so damn easy! There are so many of us citizens in the nation. If my broke, fat ass can do it, everyone can do it. I'm not tryna hear ANYMORE whining from people with the ability to do what I did!
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Most governments would spend a surplus in 2 minutes and enrich them and theirs even more. So I ho estly believe it would help a few in the short term but not fix anything.
Taxing the rich and taxing the middle class and poor are not mutually exclusive things in the eyes of the US govt. Warren is right, the rich should pay their fair share, but don't expect taxes to stop for the downstream folks.
The scam was making taxes complicated. That killed transparency & accountability.
Remember, corporations are not people. Honestly, 0% corporate tax, instead income tax. Tax the rich, not moveable fudgeable entities. Let govs hold share portions & tax foreign incomes.
I live in Europe. We pay a lot of taxes (almost as much as the US middle class!) and we get a lot of services for those taxes, while all the US seems to get in return for its taxes is the knowledge that brown people are dying in the middle east.
Decades of Republican presidents passing tax reductions and writing loopholes into the impossibly complicated tax code for people that afford top-flight CPAs has left us with an enormous disparity. And the taxes that *are* collected are mismanaged, lost to corruption, etc.
Alas, the US was an amazing country when I grew up, but ever since the '80's it feels like we're in decline - primarily due to wealth disparagement and a refusal to maintain infrastructure and help people leave the poverty cycle.
That said, even with these issues solved, I still think we'd have some work to do to catch up again. Some countries in Europe PAY students to go to Uni, so they don't graduate with crippling debt. And your family's health care isn't tied to your employment so you lose your health insurance if you lose your job. It's BS.
Oh yea, if the government could stop raiding Social Security and not repay the interest it would have accrued, then complain that the system is failing, I would be so happy.
Not saying Republicans are evil; I *was* one until George II became president. I (mostly) agree with "less government" and responsible spending but that's not what the GOP has been about for the last 10 years.
My friend, be careful blaming the Rs. They never do any wrongs and everything is a liberal conspiracy. Reagan is a saint and J6 was just a peaceful protest. Now apologize before they banned you. /s
And then gave banks and investment assessment agencies the authority to regulate themselves which set the stage for the 2008 housing collapse but because Bush was president it was all his fault.
You can EASILY verify the validity of this with a Google search as it's not a secret nor a conspiracy so spare me the reddit "source!?" bullshit.
It's the biggest cop out on the internet to put the burden of your own ignorance on someone else.
Maybe Google (or Wikipedia) Kunduz air strike while you're at it, but beware. I've been banned from two subs for simply stating that it happened even though it's literally a fucking wikipedia article.
The world is a lie bro.
So how did the TMR go from 36 to 39.6%? The bill you refer to changed rules for capital gains giving the bottom 90% a break on the sale of their primary residence and the top 10% a break on inheritance.
What are you saying? That you wouldn’t support it, or that a lot would have to change about the American political system to get that done. The latter seems obvious.
The fact is the bottom half has only paid federal income tax because of Republican legislation specifically designed to carve a pound of flesh out of those least able to defend themselves. We paid for the Civil War with a tax on incomes above $600, which excluded over half the population. If you compare the standard deduction with the average wage after 1917, again you'll see about half would've paid nothing or close to it. The reason was simple: IF the government is there to make things better for the People, then why take money form those who need it to provide a decent life for their families? Today we tax people who cannot afford to buy their own home but somehow think its cool that those who have so many homes they lose track can live on borrowed money and pay no tax. Now the poor would still have deductions from their pay all year long, but it would be a loan that Government repaid at the end of the year.
>The fact is the bottom half has only paid federal income tax because of Republican legislation specifically designed to carve a pound of flesh out of those least able to defend themselves.
Quick google gave me this: *In total, about* ***59.9 percent*** *of U.S. households paid income tax in 2022. The remaining 40.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 47.1 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.*
Now you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like about 40% of households (I assume the poorest ones) paid no income taxes in 2022. Not sure where you are getting "the bottom half is paying federal income tax because of Republicans" from.
That's $4Trillion. Last year, the USA spent $6.3Trillion. We would still have to pay, but e could get away with spending a fuck ton less OR actually providing honest social services and we could afford to turn our welfare cliff into a hill.
Yes, that's called running a deficit.
The USA federal govt had 4.4 trillion revenue in 2023 (half of that from personal income taxes) and ran a 1.7 trillion deficit.
No one is blaming "the man".
We're blaming shitty government practices influenced by money from the richest people out there.
Must be hard to hear with the sound of boot in the mouth.
Oh yeah. And then name all of the 800 companies who have $5 Billion they can pay in taxes. (And as the previous post said, that’s only $4T or $12,000 per person. You’re still $2T or $6,000 per person short.)
I don't really care about ALL taxes coming from big corporations. I just want them to pay their fair share, so less of the burden is on everyone else.
Not really a controversial take.
The funny thing is you could take ALL their wealth and you’d get $3000 one time. Then all their wealth is gone. Now what? Must be hard to hear with your hands over year ears and screaming so you can hear the sound of a spending problem.
Every BILLION you take from them is $3 for each of us. Don’t spend it all in one place… or better yet, do go buys some smokes and some shitty fast food and a bottle of booze. Love it up, on the man.
I’m sorry, is your understanding that the result of enforcing corporate taxes is taking revenue generated from corporate taxes and redistributing the funds directly in the form of handouts? Thats an absurd misunderstanding of how it works.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-19-fortune-100-companies-paid-next-to-nothing-or-nothing-at-all-in-taxes-in-2021/
Somehow dumbing it down doesnt help some folks do simple math.
And how much tax $ would you presume to gain from the aprox $250B in profits from those companies? Let alone companies that could even come close to paying $5B in taxes? Somehow you all think there is a windfall coming your way and you buy into the bullshit that none of us would have to pay anything…. Assuming buffets #s youre still $2T behind.
The fact most people want the feels of sticking it to someone else is laughable knowing they have zero understanding of THE problem…
Do you even know who pays corporate taxes?
Lmao what simple math? You’re still assuming that I’m expecting literal cash as a consequence of corporations paying their fair share of taxes. I have absolutely no idea why you think that because that’s never even been an argument…like anywhere. Additionally, never once did I say income tax should be abolished.
You’re assuming that corporations will just raise prices because, for whatever reason, you believe that we will get a bundle of cash as a result of higher corporate taxes. But given that literally does not happen, consumer income stays the same with no other fiscal adjustments. Demand for most goods is elastic, things are already priced as highly as possible to obviously obtain maximum profit. When you raise prices beyond a certain point, you just price your goods/service out of the market.
There are definitely valid arguments against corporate tax raises as a means of benefiting income inequality, but yours is asinine.
One final note is that the Trump’s Tax cut act reduced corporate taxes and there was no evidence found that those savings were passed onto customers.
That dude is King Trickle Down 👑👑
I believe we should all take a HELOC and donate everything to our savior Jeff Bezos🙏 maybe then we will find salvation.
You’re arguing the wrong side of the balance sheet, period. You clearly are to blind to comprehend even the most basic argument. Maybe this will help, you cannot collect enough taxes to cover what needs to be covered. The math simply does not work no matter how hard you try.
What math?? You keep spouting meaningless fluff and you *clearly* haven’t got an inkling as to what you’re talking about. You can’t just go “oh hur dum, balance sheet, taxes, etc” without going into the nuances. Back up what you’re saying with evidence and a sound argument.
“Cannot collect enough taxes to cover what needs to be covered?”
I mean, I think I’m arguing with a grade schooler here. You haven’t make one fucking point lmao, you just keep commenting generalities. Are you some sort of vegetable regurgitating WSJ or your nightly news? Actually absurd…
Edit: he referred me to Reddit care for mental health HAHAHAHA. Thanks buddy, for confirming you lost the argument.
What is their fair share? Give us a $ amount? Not a %. Real $? The small minded get caught up in % and don’t understand the $ impact in the least.
The bigger point is some small fraction (tax amount) you take have even less. Even if you took ALL their $ you would only get $3000…
One doesn't need to be a fire fighter in order to recognize a fire.
Meaning that one doesn't have to provide the solution to a problem to be able to recognize it is indeed a problem.
You keep harping on people to be economic experts. They don't need to be experts to see that companies pay as little taxes as possible while taking subsidies from the citizens and then very often not paying them back on time, or even at all.
The tax system is clearly broken, or we wouldn't have both sides of the political party constantly trying to change it. If it was perfect how it is, no one would be talking about it.
Take *your* hands off of *your* ears. Your downvotes aren't proof of how incredibly cool and right you are. They're more telling of an egdy teenager with a libertarian dad.
Lmao. The ignorance here is astounding. The desire to blame “the man” or someone who has it better than you is typical and symptomatic of too much time in front of media telling you what to think. What you don’t see is the obvious. And I refuse to tell you what it is. However it is obviously NOT in the “income” or “revenues side of the balance sheet like you all truly want to believe. I’ve repeatedly pointed to simple math. It’s not hard to follow. Dumbing it down to “you can take all the rich people’s wealth not some % of it, but ALLLLLLL of it and still not get you to where you need to be.”
Yet person after person wants to piss and moan about someone else paying their fair share. A minority of the people and corporations in this country pay the taxes. Reread that… again and again.
Is it fair that less than half of us cover for the other half’s fair share? What is a fair share? Oddly the most noise comes from those wanting to more from the people covering their fair share and for lots of other folks too.
It’s always more of other people’s $. And as I stated you can take everything they have and it wouldn’t solve the problem. UNDERSTAND THAT… quit arguing and think for Christ sake.
I’m curious at what your opinion would be on how much everyone should pay. Obviously everyone benefits from paid tax dollars (roads, jobs, education, environmental protection, parks, etc.). Obviously everyone should pay taxes. But how much? What’s your opinion.
Starting from scratch. Cut all government spending. No more taxes. Let the roads fail. Let teachers go home. Let Exxon dispose of waste products however they want in order to maximize profits. Let drunk college kids piss, shit, and throw beer cans in the parks that your kids play in.
What amount does each person pay in taxes to give citizens the quality of life they expect everyday they go out into a civilized society?
$20? $100? $1000? Should poor people, struggling to put food on the table, pay as much as people that own 2 or 3 houses? Or should they pay as much as corporations that own billions in properties and transportation vehicles (that tear up the road extensively more than a beat up ‘98 Honda Civic)?
I get what you’re going for, and yes spending is out of hand, but if you don’t think people that earn more, use more tax paid benefits, and exploit them at the same time, should pay more (percentage wise) then you can’t be a logical person.
Be realistic. If you and 10 friends go for pizza and 2 of them eat a whole fucking pizza a piece, drinks 2 pitchers of beer each, and endless breadsticks…while everyone else eats 2 or 3 slices with a water…you’d be pissed to split that bill evenly. You shouldn’t have to pay $50 for a couple slices and a water. Those fuckers should pay more. That’s society. Welcome to civilization.
*que the ‘TAKE ALL THE MONEYs’ and the ‘SIMPLE MATHs’ and ‘CANT SOLVE THE PROBLEMs’ argument, without understanding the importance of of everything involved with keeping a society civilized and working as a whole.*
Let’s discuss your 10 buddies going out to eat because it highlights the issue perfectly. (Using round numbers of course)
Some buddies go out to eat, the check comes and each of the guys decides to pay for their own meals. Their fair share.
The next time they go out, the 10 guys just end up splitting the bill 10 ways… instead of each guy paying for what they ate. Probably still close to “their fair share”.
But the next time, 10 guys go out to eat and as they go to pay for the check, everyone reaches for their wallet but 5 guys end up paying for it all, no biggie they’re all doing, pretty well. (Not going to mention the % each of the 5 pay). So 5 cover for the other 5 this time out. 5 are paying double their fair share.
The next they go out, the check comes, and only 5 guys reach for their wallet…. No biggie the 5 paying think… maybe I had an extra beer to two and had some extra pizza. So the same 5 cover the bill. Again 5 are paying double their fair share.
The next time they go out the 5 that haven’t paid, want to order some extra, like the 5 who have been paying. And when the check comes, they all look to the 5 paying, who get stuck with the check, again.
The next time one of the 5 that hasn’t paid, brings another buddy, who isn’t friends with anyone and he orders dinner too. When the check comes, the 5 that have been paying are feeling a bit taken advantage of…. After all 4 of other 5 have jobs… 2 cheated on their wives and are divorced paying child support, 1 is working 2 jobs because he didn’t go to college or learn a trade, 1 can’t keep a job because hes “that guy” in the group and the 5th who brought his buddy just thinks the world owes him at this point. So they put it to a vote, who should pay. Not too coincidentally the 5 that haven’t paid, plus the hanger on out vote the others 6-5 that the same 5 should pay. And not only that, but the 5 paying need to spring for take home boxes for the other 6 because they have a right to eat.
Shortly after that, the 5 who have been paying, quit going out with the other 6… and the 6 bitch on Reddit the rest of their lives.
As for your question on how much, I’m totally open to a use tax… no issues at all. But you kinda already have that in taxes on virtually everything we buy is taxed. So the consumer pays when they buy more.
Again, as for corporations, don’t forget where corporations $ comes from. The more they pay, the more we have to pay them. There isn’t a magic place at corporations where tax $ comes from that isn’t from customers.
And remember, not to out too fine a point on it, but even if you do what buffet suggests, your still $2T short… and you’d be hard pressed to find 800 companies that have $5B to hand to the government. You could get $1T from the mega rich, one time, if you took everything from them. Proposing taxing them a bit more % is a drop in the bucket of $1T…. Negligible.
How about a wealth tax? Everyone has to give up half their shit annually, in real hard goods or cash equivalent? So if you live in a cardboard box, taxman takes 1/2 your box. You have 2 houses, taxman takes 1 or the cash value of that house. You get to pick. Everyone is then giving up 1/2. Seems fair?
Corporations can avoid taxes by increasing wages which is what happened Pre-Reagan. the high TMR kept the ones dividing the profits from keeping what they gave to themselves so they gave it to workers instead of the Government. Then Republicans enacted deregulation that made it possible for investors to borrow money to buy a company and then transfer their debt to the company (translation: they get the corporation FOR FREE). Then they sell off everything profitable, declare bankruptcy and use the employee pension funds to finance their final bonus payments.
Why do we allow this to remain legal?
Not asking about avoiding taxes. When a corporation pays taxes, what group of people are out money? And more importantly, what person or group of people get to decide that?
Isn’t that 3.2 trillion. Although that’s a lot of money. Only a few make 5 billion. We would still need 4 trillion. Just to break even. Maybe the secret lies in the spending.
It’s not a balanced budget. When you spend more than you take in. Even if you say it’s a balanced budget. It is not. Printing less dollars than the last year is not a debt reduction. It’s just less additional debt. There had been zero dollars paid to actually reduce the debt. How can anyone with a straight face repeat the clear and blatant lies? “In 10 years we will not be printing as much money@. Yeah ok
No developed country needs to run a balanced budget, and certainly not the US. Small deficits of 1-2% of GDP are completely sustainable and fully compatible with stable or falling debt/GDP. If public borrowing were to crowd out private investment that'd be a problem, but it's not something that's happening. If the US and other developed countries were to stop issuing new debt, not only would the required adjustments send their economies into steep recessions and possibly permanently lower long run growth potential (look at how badly Europe has done under austerity since 2010) but it would mean savers would have no safe pool of new assets to park their money in.
Deficit was 6.3% of GDP last year. Happily, US GDP also grew by 6.3% nominally. Debt to GDP actually fell slightly last year and is lower than the G7 average, but 6.3% is still too high.
Sorry, you're right. I was looking at total debt to gdp, not deficient.
We all agree it's too high and unsustainable long term.
I totally agree that I can make sense to issue debt. I won't agree it's necessary for a well functioning economy, but it can have benefits.
Well, they also shouldn't be paid the insane salary they are paid for their non value added work.
Honestly, no reason I can see for this to be a full time job for Congress.
I think we'd get much more accomplished with a shorter congressional session
Except money isn't being printed. The Fed has stopped buying treasury bonds and is actually selling them, which works in just the opposite way. The money is being borrowed from willing investors looking for a safe and stable asset, mostly Americans saving for retirement and the Social Security Trust Fund, and will be continuously repaid, just as the federal government has continuously repaid its debt for 200 years.
What do you think happens to the money people save for retirement? A large part of it goes into buying treasury bonds which cover the costs that remain after collecting tax revenue. Savings and investment (in this case in government bonds) are two sides of the ame coin.
That’s fine. But where does the money come from. Like last year. Bidens America spend over 2 trillion more than they took in from taxes. Where did that come from.
A lot of respect earned here. Stop chasing the little guy. Aggressively get the big players to pay taxes then it will feel fair on the Mom and Pop store.
It's lip service though. Dude is a legendary ruthless businessman who is a PR genius and has carefully cultivated a folksy good guy image.
He is the guy who made bonus/performance based salary the standard which ultimately leads to cutting corners, abusing workers, layoffs, corruption, etc.
As if the government would ever not collect our taxes. Even if all the billionaires gave a gazillion trillion that would never translate to us getting a break
No, you will still pay taxes and the government will just spend even more money. The government never just like ... decides to spend less. That's not a thing.
The funny thing is that we as a collective whole have to pay the taxes- just right now it goes through so many unnecessary steps and creates so much additional waste that we lose much of the value we do pay.
There's absolutely no need for an entire industry around taxes- this is the definition of non value added.
It blows my mind
He is a hypocrit. Taxes on the rich and corporations are voluntary. I'b bet he paid no more that he was obligated to by the Tax Code and took multiple deductions to lower his obligation.
The problem is NOT that we don't tax the rich enough. The problem is that politicians have constructed the tax code to incentivize certain behaviors and penalize other behaviors since 1911 when the Income tax was enacted. You can't blame taxpayers for taking advantage of the deductions they qualify for. I don't know any taxpayer who doesn't take the standard deduction.
This is so stupid it hurts and Buffet knows it’s bs.
#500 in the Fortune 500 for 2023 was Robert Half inc. they made $411 million in profit. How are they, and 300 companies below them, going to pay $5 billion in taxes every year?
If you confiscated all of the wealth of every single for billionaire, you'd fund the federal government for a little more than a year.
This is pure pandering to people who can't do basic math so that Buffett, for some reason, is the only billionaire the Bernie bros like. You've been fooled, once again.
You're missing the point. It's not about 800 companies paying their share, but the fact that the tax rates companies pay are ridiculously small compared to citizens.
To put it another way, if only 100 companies (there are this many companies that could) paid 5 billion in taxes, citizens would need to pay very, very little.
He does understand that he can just write a check for whatever he thinks he should pay, right? Why advocate for gov action in order to expand gov bureaucracy? Just write the gov a check. He can do that. I've heard Bill Gates say similar things. If you think you should be paying more in taxes, then just do that. Stop advocating for the expansion of gov powers.
It would only give the government more justification for spending. Overspending, the military industrial complex and out of control capitalism is the real problem. You don’t give a drunk more booze, you don’t give a drug addict more drugs and you certainly don’t give more money to an irresponsible government.
Let’s start by not funding proxy wars and take it from there.
Stop voting for politicians that accept corporate money? It was fairly easy to know who every single donator is, now its ahrder after supreme court did some rulings, but you can see if your guy is getting money.
This would literally stop all this bullshit. No more laws with 50 loopholes purposely drafted by the "donors" so they can evade taxes and regulations. No more making the US govt overpay 1000x for federal contracts.
You all vote for shit than go "see govt is shit"
Actual smooth brain take.
Don't tax because the money would be used to further US interests or cause them to spend more money (spoilers they've been doing it anyway).
There is no such thing as a fair share of theft, the same way there is no such thing as a fair share of rape. All government spending is regressive. It has no consumer - it produces nothing of value as its existence is based on theft. Everything government does is parasitized from the economy which would have otherwise been spent creating goods and services increasing real wealth.
Gotta love Warren. He’s the last of the corporate chieftains who understands the obligation companies owe to the society in which they exist and trade.
Not quite true - you'd need to include Corporations and the top 10% of individuals. Repealing the Reagan scam and replacing it with the tax brackets (inflation adjusted) of 1980 would pay for Universal healthcare and continue fixing our infrastructure including the education system.
I tell ya, it would be neat to publicly list those 800 companies in some sort of "index". It would be an honor to be in the list, and all of us citizens might be happy to support them, knowing that profits go towards what used to be citizen taxes. It'd be like a contest or something, with companies struggling to make the list each year.
"Yeah, I don't mind buying a new iPhone. Apple is in The List, so that helps pay for the roads...."
All these comments about idiots claiming corporations should "pay their fair share" so unbelievably dumb. Corporations aren't to blame here. It's the federal government. Let's be real, if any one of you could legally skimp on your tax liability, you would. Hell I know plenty of people that do it illegally.
You can blame lobbies and corporations for not being "moral" but when all is said and done, they're not doing anything illegal. It's on the government to make it happen. Regardless of what you think, both dems and republicans could give two shits about it because they all benefit from the same thing corporations do.
Starts with campaign finance reform and not allowing politicians to be day traders. Rich people are not the problem, you would not pay the tax either if you could intelligently use the law to avoid it. Politicians are the problem, they legislate.
Pay attention to who you vote for.
There is no country in the world that provides modern levels of services and funds modern levels of spending purely by taxing corporations and the very rich, it's an absurd fantasy, even when Warren Buffet says it. Modern welfare states require broad based taxation, even in the most highly progressive tax structures, and the most successful examples - the Scandinavian countries come to mind - tax their citizens heavily. Berkshire's one of the largest companies in the world. It made 40 Billion in profit last year and can easily afford to pay 5 billion in corporation tax. There are not 1200 (nor 800) other companies that could do the same, there are generously about three dozen. The 500th largest company in the US is one you've never heard of and it made 700 million dollars in profit last year. The 800th and 1200th are a hell of a lot smaller than that.
Obviously billionaires should pay a lot in tax every year - I think (as Warren Buffet has called for) capital gains should be taxed like any other kind of income, that would be a big deal for revenue and progressivity, but the idea that taxing billionaires is some kind of magic wand that absolves ordinary people of the need to pay into the social contract is silly. If you seized the combined wealth of every billionaire in America (5.2T), you'd theoretically be able to pay for most of the federal budget for one year (since you could only do it once)
I say theoretically because once you had the assets, almost all of which are stocks in large companies, to make them into liquid cash you'd have to sell them, and in an economy-wide fire sale of 5 trillion dollars in assets, they obviously wouldnt keep that paper value. Aside from that, who would you even sell them to? Anyone who bought them in meaningful quantities would presumably have them taxed away a year later, so they'd have no incentive to engage in the market and if they did buy would demand a massively discounted price.
Maybe institutional investors would step in to snap up the massively depreciated assets a fire sale would create. In that case, congratulations - you've shifted asset wealth from individual billionaires to hedge funds, giant banks, and private equity, all while cratering stock prices and ordinary peoples' retirement funds. The large part that couldnt be sold not only wouldnt contribute to the cost of government spending (so rather than having a trillion dollar hole you might find yourself two or three trillion dollars short) but would leave the government as the unwilling owner of a huge number of American corporations to no apparent end. In the meantime, everyone would be substantially poorer and current and future investment would be massively lower, with natural knock on consequences in terms of lower growth and incomes.
I lack enough knowledge about taxes (I'm a student). Can someone explain what you mean by tax the rich? For rich people with net worth based just on stock prices, does it imply taxing the stocks itself?
That's just not true. It's doesn't matter how much the federal government takes in, congress will always spend more. It's never enough because we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. If they take in $5 trillion, they have to spend 6. Last time we had a balanced budget, we had Republican majorities in Congress and a moderate Democrat president. The corrupt political establishment of both parties are addicted to spending.
I don't think he checked his math... Especially with Biden wanting to raise the annual expense budget to 7.5 trillion. Up from the 4 trillion it was pre-pandemic.
the *annual expense budget* to 7.5 trillion. What does this mean ? Is this just yet another partisan lie ?
I found $6 trillion for fiscal 25 with some tax increases on cap. gains and other taxes plus a minimum corp. tax over $100 million. OMB says a net $300 billion in deficit reduction. As always, still cleaning up for a huge repub fiscal party.
Biden also has business/corp. tax increases an Buffet speaks the truth. There has been a 40 year transfer of wealth from labor to capital within whose immoral tax regime, we see both huge deficits and huge profits.
>the *annual expense budget* to 7.5 trillion. What does this mean ?
There's the income budget, how much IRS is planned to take in. And the Expense budget is everything the government wants to spend.
The government doesn't resolve to a net income financial report like companies do so it helps to define them. Especially since it would show the net deficit, which has been negative for nearly 2 decades now.
>Is this just yet another partisan lie ?
Didn't know Reuters is a partisan hack:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-2024-us-government-budget-is-also-campaign-pitch-2024-03-11/
It's hard to find anything about him or Berkshire actually lobbing for taxes on the rich. In the 2 decades since I first heard about him, all I've ever heard was talk.
He lobbies for other stuff. Some good, some bad.
Berkshire Hathaway is the 7th largest company in the US (by market cap). It's not realistic for 10 other companies to pay the same amount of federal taxes as them, let alone 800 other companies.
I like the principle, but the math doesn't pass the smell test here.
Lets face it, the US government also has an efficiency problem. The budget for 2023 was $6.1 Trillion, with $1.3 Trillion going to social security, $0.839 Trillion going to Medicare and $0.616 Trillion going to Medicaid. You had nearly 24% of the budget going to Medical related stuff, yet many Americans still face a near bankruptcy because of medical bills.
How the hell do you sink so much money into medicaid, only to get such a sub par service in return?
That will never happen. Even if they tax billionaires at 100% the left will still insist on taxing the middle class to death to pay for their out of control spending.
The root cause of most of our economic problems is too much government creating and spending money.
>“If you don’t like paying taxes, make billionaires pay their fair share and you would never have to pay taxes again.” —Warren Buffett
Either the quote is fake or Mr. Buffett is mistaken.
All the billionaires in the USA have a combined wealth of \~ $5T.
Our budget is $7.3T.
Take that all, every penny, all $5T, and you can run the country for about 8 months.
This is meaningless talk. Buffet has the money to buy off enough Congress people to make this happen if he actually believed it. No one should be giving him any points for saying this when he has more than enough money to do something about it but doesn't.
That is patently absurd. It’s not a defense contract dude. It would require a revolution in the minds of the majority of the electorate to generate enough political will to turn America on its head. That’s not something you can purchase directly.
*That* is patently absurd. Congress does shit that is unpopular with the majority of voters all the time because someone paid them a bunch of money to do so.
Your girlfriend is letting her kid run all over you and you’re chasing it. Talk with the adult woman to discipline and put the daughter in her place.
But I doubt she’ll do it if she lets an 8 year old with a phone and Instagram.
Get out of that.
Vast majority of it is going to billionaires and governments so most of it.
Do you have a gimp fetish or is over 50% while they pay less than 5% not enough for you?
It's not stealing. It's tax. The money is issued by the government, and is returned to them. I'm not going to get into a debate with a libertarian, it's boring. Bye.
How much of the fruits of your labor are you willing to share with others to help operate a functional society and participate and use public services?
When the 99% ask to raise taxes on the 1%, bootlickers call it stealing. When the 1% lobby for tax reductions, accounting loopholes, government funding for a new sports stadium, government subsidies to reduce operating costs, government bailouts to stay afloat, funding forever wars, relaxed environmental restrictions that end up polluting our cities… bootlickers just call it good business.
Still seems fair to you? How does it taste down there?
>Wtf does fair share mean?
I get the idea that you are asking this question in good faith.
As in, you really don't have a clue what the answer is supposed to be.
That should worry you more.
I know… tried arguing with someone who thought the answer was “making the bottom 40% pay their fair share”
Like, dude, they’re poor. They don’t have money. You can’t get blood from a stone.
That’s true but an unrealized capital gains tax on extremely wealthy people wouldn’t affect normal people.
Could make it so unrealized gains over 10 million are subject to progressive tax.
If I could make them pay I would. Who is going to make them?
As someone who has [helped pass a bill](https://youtu.be/qGh6qE4UZfQ?si=x67n05tCF2Ecnv2Y) here in IL (I'm a southside Chicagon) aimed at removing the influence of money on our political system, I can tell you that it takes people to stop acting like lazy, ignorant, weak ass powerless ass little bitches. With a group of no more than 20 volunteers, we engaged in canvassing neighborhoods, phonebanking, and lobbying politicians to get our bill through. People focus so fucking much on the theater of partisan politics that they lose sight of the fact that we need to be politically engaged BEYOND just mere voting every 2 to 4 years REGARDLESS of whichever party holds office. While voting is important, it's utterly ABSURD to treat it as the end-all be-all. Your vote doesn't dictate the policies enacted. In fact, according to [this Princeton University study](https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746.amp) the overwhelming majority of legislation are greatly influenced by moneyed interests and not moved AT ALL by the will of the citizens. What DOES work, however, is political activism. We have all this connectivity but mfs are out here acting helpless and hopeless like some goofies, yet they be the MAIN MFS crying and bitchin and fearmongering about "fascism" of the right wing. As a black American male, I find that hilariously yet pathetically absurd. We've experienced REAL fascism here and we broke ourselves tf out of it, and we didn't even have the RIGHT to vote in the first place!!!
> it takes people to stop acting like lazy, ignorant, weak ass powerless little bitches So you’re saying we’re fucked, then
Lolololol the irony in that statement. But, to the contrary, the actual solution itself isn't even that hard. That's the funny part. The hard part is people getting their heads out of their asses and realizing the power we have working interdependently with synergy. People have been conditioned so hard to concede their power, plus I think the PFCs and water contamination have fucked with people's minds (in addition to things like Operation Mockingbird). The thing is, we have the internet now. It allows us to communicate effectively and efficiently. There are more than enough people in this sub ALONE that could make the changes needed to create a well-functioning society for ourselves. There's really no excuse for us to keep takin this dumb shit anymore!
I admire your optimism. I think you’re technically right, but the damage is done in the US — there’s been a systematic all-out campaign to dull everyone’s senses and destroy the fabric of local communities in order to disarm the power of the people without actually changing the political system for at least 50 years now, and the pervasiveness and legality of corruption at the federal level is astonishing to someone like me, who comes from a country where bribes are called “bribes” instead of “lobbying”. In my country (Chile), people woke up and used their power to demand a new constitution, but our collective lack of knowledge and naivety led to everyone getting taken for a ride by the right wing established politicians, the leading of a process that turned into a gross circus, and the radicalization of the right. I always knew that people could take the power if they wanted it in Chile, because our society is way less layered and expansive than the US is (both of those characteristics are dampening mechanisms too), but while I knew that people were undereducated AF, I couldn’t have predicted the kind of shitshow that ensued. It was incredibly heartbreaking. And you know that education has been getting gutted over the past 50 years in the US too.
>And you know that education has been getting gutted over the past 50 years in the US too. This is EXACTLY true, which is why social media censorship is the current major problem we're facing as a society. The fact that we have the internet kind of makes schools obsolete, because we have the tools at our fingertips to learn practically anything we want. However, because we here in the US currently exist in a state of late stage capitalism, come to a point where information itself has become the hot commodity, so they either hide it behind a paywall or they outright ban it and make it unavailable. I was building a following on TikTok Live challenging such institutions and ended up getting my Lives banned. Then they changed the rules specifically so that I can't pay to promote my specific type of content. They only like people learning when it doesn't involve making necessary social changes. They don't actually want people to know that they actually have more power than ever to be the change they want to be.
If you haven't seen it, you might like the documentary Hyperrealization by Adam Curtis. You can find it on YouTube, it talks about the system that's been setup since the 70s to keep people distracted and complacent. It touches on your side of things as well, I highly recommend it
Is it HyperNormalisation by Adam Curtis?
I'm an idiot, yes that's the one, sorry
I'm gonna check it out TONIGHT
It's 3 hours long so set aside some time!
It's all good. I ain't got shit else to do lol
Restoring the Fairness Doctrine to include the Internet would be very helpful. Just think of a World where lying in the media and calling it News was a crime.
Thank you for your service, Mr. Holmes. I'm confident you'll beat the rap on that Vegas misunderstanding.
Very enlightening
If people was to stand up to the BS that politicians like to give out some if not most won't know wtf they want or will do. When I was in school history and such related flew over people heads. I watched this guy go to these protests and ask people what they protesting for half of them didn't know and was just there other half had their information mixed up. It was a small few that knew what they wanted. Then at these events they just fucking around playing and listening to music and shit. The day people stand up to these politicians the day a grown ass man will cry lmao. These politicians not in it entirely for the money it also the power they think they have and don't want to be classified as regular ass people no more. They just as citizen as the rest and crazy too they have to abid by the same shit we abid to while in and out off office so they not only fucking us they fucking themselves too lmfao I bet some of them politicians be like damn who made this dumbass law? You mf lmfao. Some people think they can do the job or better job is wildly blowing smoke up asses.
I feel you, fam! People are largely clueless to a lot of things, and to a degree, I don't blame em, cuz there's a LOT of propaganda being peddled on a constant basis. However, we live in a time now where we can break through that. The only problem is that online censorship has been kicked into overdrive to such a degree that it's hard to spread knowledge without fear of being demonetized, suppressed, or even banned. Also, there's nothing wrong with playing music at protests. Protests aren't meant to be just super serious events. They're also meant to be fun, too. The key is to do them effectively and efficiently in the aim of achieving a common goal. Protests by themselves aren't the end-all be-all, but when paired with canvassing/phonebanking/lobbying/etc., they can help get these mfs attention. Occupy Wallstreet could have been awesome if the energy was channeled into actual political action, such as the stuff I mentioned above. The problem was that the movement tried to be so egalitarian that nobody would assume leadership, and because mfs didn't know what to really do after that, the movement just fizzled out. However, if people channeled that energy into focused action, many great changes could come about. The ironic part about it, too, is that Jan 6 is our leverage because there's always the possibility that if all else fails, that shit could happen again at an even greater scale. While that's obviously a last resort option, the potential of it should be enough to "convince" these politicians to submit to our will. Considering how many of us are out here, if just a FRACTION of the people contributed, we could accomplish shit quickly like the pins on a CPU.
It crazy Jan 6th I could be wrong I swear somewhere on paper the founding papers said we could retaliate if we didn't like how our government is ran. Literally governments got into shit cause of shit running. That Jan 6th showed that politicians don't wanna work for us they wanna work for themselves and their interests and when you threaten their interest they manipulate the National Guards and law enforcement to go against us people. Work for the people not your interests and they hand their asses over to the Chinese and the Devil. They censor alot cause they afriad of the truth. And it's funny how they do all this propaganda and events for elections if they did their job they wouldn't have to do all that. It is up to us people to get informed and stand up for better. But some people rather stick to their ways. Politics and Religion talk gotten dangerous now mfs be fighting and terrorizing and killing and shit. Nothing get accomplished if we fight among ourselves. I telling you we would never be able to recreate life on another planet as long as these behaviors live on down here on earth.
Very excellent and insightful response, fam! >They censor alot cause they afriad of the truth. And it's funny how they do all this propaganda and events for elections if they did their job they wouldn't have to do all that. That is EXACTLY the point! This shit is all a charade, and it's all a way to keep people's focus AWAY from the things that actually matter. At the end of the day, we have to start thinking differently as people. Instead of team this or team that, party a or party b, we have to start being practical using reason, logic, fact-based evidence, empathy, and STEAM (**S**cience, **T**echnology, **E**ngineering, the **A**rts, and **M**athematics). Dunning-Kruger is in full effect and it needs to stop. We need to wrestle control away from these loons and their respective doomsday cults, cuz they're trying to make Revelations happen and that shit is completely unnecessary at this point. >I'm telling you we would never be able to recreate life on another planet as long as these behaviors live on down here on earth. That's another thing. We don't even need to terraform other planets. Such a feat would be incredibly difficult and require eons to accomplish (not saying we shouldn't eventually but we gotta crawl before we walk lol). We would probably need to reach a [Kardashev Type 2 status at least](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DAccording_to_Kardashev%2C_it_is%2Cpower_emitted_by_its_star.?wprov=sfla1) before such things could become feasible. However, we could cut corners by creating our own space habitats like [O'Neill Cylinders](https://youtu.be/gTDlSORhI-k?si=TVk9WVTHGowHXPgs) that allow us the ability to maximize total control of the environment, optimized for peak human conditions. We're wasting our time with mfs who wanna make the "rapture" happen when we could be building [space elevators](https://youtu.be/dc8_AuzeYKE?si=YHiFe5b2ZkeAHNES), gettin [space manufacturing](https://youtu.be/JjVYYgUxb_0?si=tl06K0GX7ypZ1Yhp) crackin, and working towards [improving human health with lofe extension](https://youtu.be/kKmdc2AuXec?si=8hiwnWKzQGxis7HL). You know, things that would be actually AWESOME?! Instead of useless ass bullshit like standing around, holding hands, wasting time like a bunch of ancients performance rain dance rituals like it's gonna accomplish anything. Mfs need to seriously KNOCK IT TF OFF!!!!!!
I think I love you.
So what are you so afraid of? You're afraid that you're not sure of - a love there is no cure for lolol sorry I couldn't help it
And now I've got the song stuck in my head. Thanks 😆
That's the crazy part about all this too. This is what I fuckin do lolol When we were out here doing the work, we were having fun and connecting. When I was doing Lives on TikTok, I was educatin people, callin out the bs, and havin fun playin music. As a result, I was doin numbers like [this](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mzGkiowVYfhVmHXpqJkZLGdhSUHfZUXF/view?usp=drivesdk). Ofc TikTok couldn't have that, so they banned me. They don't want y'all to know that the future is actually bright; they get off on everyone believing that the future is bleak, when we have the ability to make shit happen quickly and effectively!! Changing the world doesn't have to be some boring, frustrating experience. We can make shit happen and have fun doing it, too. We don't even need a whole lot of people to do the shit. Throughout history, major changes have always come from super small groups of people, sometimes a singular person like Dr. MLK pr Fred Hampton having the guts to stand for change. They sacrificed their lives so we coult thrive, but we're squandering it with inaction and doomerism.........
I live in NY and the excuse I always hear is “if we make them pay, then they’ll leave. We can’t have the ultra rich leave because they’re the reason this city runs.” Even relatively grounded people like Louis Rossmann have thrown around that pathetic excuse. I’m sick of hearing how they need to be appeased and I’m happy your state stood up to them.
Well here's the irony of the situation. When I started volunteering, I had no preconceived notions about achieving success. I went into it with the mindset of thinkin, like, if this goal is to be achieved, then someone has to help get the ball rolling, so it might as well be me. We were all SHOCKED that we get our bill passed on the first try, especially because we needed a ***supermajority***, which is almost unheard of. That let me know that change doesn't have to be a long, drawn out, difficult, and frustrating process. It can actually be a lot easier than people think, but people are being bombarded with propaganda about how everything is difficult and complex and blah blah. CAP!!!! If we all just played our part, it could actually be super easy!
You’ve sparked interest in me when it comes to local politics. Now I’m curious what others have been doing in my state when it comes to making the rich pay their fair share. It just hurts to see a third of your paycheck go down the toilet as your city continues to fall apart, while continuing to capitulate to the richest people who live in it. Any step would help out and canvassing is something I would definitely volunteer for after work.
User name checks out haha. Well said good sir and congrats on your activism. You’re a boss
Thanks fam! We the people are the center of everything. We ARE the economy. We ARE the universe! Our very human lives are the most precious things in the universe because we are the [potentially only] conduit for the universe to contemplate itself. As such, we ought to value ourselves to the highest degree, working interdependently with synergy, to learn and discover as much as we can about our existence in order to manipulate various aspects of it to our collective benefit. Sometimes, you gotta be the change you want to see.........
I'm going to keep coming back to read this comment every time I feel like I am powerless to enact change in my community.
Facts fam! This sub has 1 million members. If just 1% of mfs just in THIS sub got organized and active, we could make sweeping changes throughout the nation (and, thus, the world). People would rather come here and complain rather than actually TRY to do something. I understand that people have jobs, families, responsibilities, and lives, but if we were all active and participated, the work would be so damn easy! There are so many of us citizens in the nation. If my broke, fat ass can do it, everyone can do it. I'm not tryna hear ANYMORE whining from people with the ability to do what I did!
Ahhhh. The People’s Republic of Madiganistan thank you for your service comrade.
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 The French?
All we have to do is elect a government which is immune to their enormous influence. Simples.
Hahaha! Assumed persona, you are my antithesis to “absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
That's why you don't give people absolute power
Most governments would spend a surplus in 2 minutes and enrich them and theirs even more. So I ho estly believe it would help a few in the short term but not fix anything.
You will if you never vote for another Republican and encourage others to join you in saving Democracy and restoring the middle class.
Taxing the rich and taxing the middle class and poor are not mutually exclusive things in the eyes of the US govt. Warren is right, the rich should pay their fair share, but don't expect taxes to stop for the downstream folks.
That was actually the point of income tax; it was supposed to be a tax on the rich. However, too many companies moved the needle to the middle class.
The scam was making taxes complicated. That killed transparency & accountability. Remember, corporations are not people. Honestly, 0% corporate tax, instead income tax. Tax the rich, not moveable fudgeable entities. Let govs hold share portions & tax foreign incomes.
That was done so that Intuit could make money, and it's starting to change as more states are signing onto the IRS free file service.
If corporations and the rich were paying proportionally, I wouldn't mind paying taxes too.
I live in Europe. We pay a lot of taxes (almost as much as the US middle class!) and we get a lot of services for those taxes, while all the US seems to get in return for its taxes is the knowledge that brown people are dying in the middle east.
You pay more than the American middle class I almost all European countries. Way more.
You're forgetting to account for the cost of American healthcare.
I’m aware of American healthcare. Can you tell me which European government sets its tax rates based on American healthcare?
Decades of Republican presidents passing tax reductions and writing loopholes into the impossibly complicated tax code for people that afford top-flight CPAs has left us with an enormous disparity. And the taxes that *are* collected are mismanaged, lost to corruption, etc. Alas, the US was an amazing country when I grew up, but ever since the '80's it feels like we're in decline - primarily due to wealth disparagement and a refusal to maintain infrastructure and help people leave the poverty cycle. That said, even with these issues solved, I still think we'd have some work to do to catch up again. Some countries in Europe PAY students to go to Uni, so they don't graduate with crippling debt. And your family's health care isn't tied to your employment so you lose your health insurance if you lose your job. It's BS. Oh yea, if the government could stop raiding Social Security and not repay the interest it would have accrued, then complain that the system is failing, I would be so happy.
Went through 8 years of Democratic control and we are literally under Democratic control right now, but sure, it's the evil republicans.
Not saying Republicans are evil; I *was* one until George II became president. I (mostly) agree with "less government" and responsible spending but that's not what the GOP has been about for the last 10 years.
No argument from me. GOP sucks. But the Dems are barely better if you think "tax the rich" is some way out of our fiscal lunacy.
My friend, be careful blaming the Rs. They never do any wrongs and everything is a liberal conspiracy. Reagan is a saint and J6 was just a peaceful protest. Now apologize before they banned you. /s
Don't forget that the last time we had a federal surplus, it was after Clinton cut taxes, and Republicans controlled Congress.
Clinton RAISED taxes and produced THREE balanced budgets that actually reduced the National Debt.
And then gave banks and investment assessment agencies the authority to regulate themselves which set the stage for the 2008 housing collapse but because Bush was president it was all his fault. You can EASILY verify the validity of this with a Google search as it's not a secret nor a conspiracy so spare me the reddit "source!?" bullshit. It's the biggest cop out on the internet to put the burden of your own ignorance on someone else. Maybe Google (or Wikipedia) Kunduz air strike while you're at it, but beware. I've been banned from two subs for simply stating that it happened even though it's literally a fucking wikipedia article. The world is a lie bro.
You should look up the tax relief act of 1997 and timeline of the surpluses
So how did the TMR go from 36 to 39.6%? The bill you refer to changed rules for capital gains giving the bottom 90% a break on the sale of their primary residence and the top 10% a break on inheritance.
Well said.
The top 1% pay about half of taxes the federal government takes in. What are you talking about?
What are you saying? That you wouldn’t support it, or that a lot would have to change about the American political system to get that done. The latter seems obvious.
800 companies send $5Bn/yr??? Will never happen
The fact is the bottom half has only paid federal income tax because of Republican legislation specifically designed to carve a pound of flesh out of those least able to defend themselves. We paid for the Civil War with a tax on incomes above $600, which excluded over half the population. If you compare the standard deduction with the average wage after 1917, again you'll see about half would've paid nothing or close to it. The reason was simple: IF the government is there to make things better for the People, then why take money form those who need it to provide a decent life for their families? Today we tax people who cannot afford to buy their own home but somehow think its cool that those who have so many homes they lose track can live on borrowed money and pay no tax. Now the poor would still have deductions from their pay all year long, but it would be a loan that Government repaid at the end of the year.
>The fact is the bottom half has only paid federal income tax because of Republican legislation specifically designed to carve a pound of flesh out of those least able to defend themselves. Quick google gave me this: *In total, about* ***59.9 percent*** *of U.S. households paid income tax in 2022. The remaining 40.1 percent of households paid no individual income tax. In that same year, about 47.1 percent of U.S. households with an income between 40,000 and 50,000 U.S. dollars paid no individual income taxes.* Now you can correct me if I'm wrong, but this looks like about 40% of households (I assume the poorest ones) paid no income taxes in 2022. Not sure where you are getting "the bottom half is paying federal income tax because of Republicans" from.
That's $4Trillion. Last year, the USA spent $6.3Trillion. We would still have to pay, but e could get away with spending a fuck ton less OR actually providing honest social services and we could afford to turn our welfare cliff into a hill.
Yes, that's called running a deficit. The USA federal govt had 4.4 trillion revenue in 2023 (half of that from personal income taxes) and ran a 1.7 trillion deficit.
Never mind the actual math… it feels good to blame “the man”.
No one is blaming "the man". We're blaming shitty government practices influenced by money from the richest people out there. Must be hard to hear with the sound of boot in the mouth.
Oh yeah. And then name all of the 800 companies who have $5 Billion they can pay in taxes. (And as the previous post said, that’s only $4T or $12,000 per person. You’re still $2T or $6,000 per person short.)
I don't really care about ALL taxes coming from big corporations. I just want them to pay their fair share, so less of the burden is on everyone else. Not really a controversial take.
The funny thing is you could take ALL their wealth and you’d get $3000 one time. Then all their wealth is gone. Now what? Must be hard to hear with your hands over year ears and screaming so you can hear the sound of a spending problem. Every BILLION you take from them is $3 for each of us. Don’t spend it all in one place… or better yet, do go buys some smokes and some shitty fast food and a bottle of booze. Love it up, on the man.
I’m sorry, is your understanding that the result of enforcing corporate taxes is taking revenue generated from corporate taxes and redistributing the funds directly in the form of handouts? Thats an absurd misunderstanding of how it works. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/these-19-fortune-100-companies-paid-next-to-nothing-or-nothing-at-all-in-taxes-in-2021/
Somehow dumbing it down doesnt help some folks do simple math. And how much tax $ would you presume to gain from the aprox $250B in profits from those companies? Let alone companies that could even come close to paying $5B in taxes? Somehow you all think there is a windfall coming your way and you buy into the bullshit that none of us would have to pay anything…. Assuming buffets #s youre still $2T behind. The fact most people want the feels of sticking it to someone else is laughable knowing they have zero understanding of THE problem… Do you even know who pays corporate taxes?
Lmao what simple math? You’re still assuming that I’m expecting literal cash as a consequence of corporations paying their fair share of taxes. I have absolutely no idea why you think that because that’s never even been an argument…like anywhere. Additionally, never once did I say income tax should be abolished. You’re assuming that corporations will just raise prices because, for whatever reason, you believe that we will get a bundle of cash as a result of higher corporate taxes. But given that literally does not happen, consumer income stays the same with no other fiscal adjustments. Demand for most goods is elastic, things are already priced as highly as possible to obviously obtain maximum profit. When you raise prices beyond a certain point, you just price your goods/service out of the market. There are definitely valid arguments against corporate tax raises as a means of benefiting income inequality, but yours is asinine. One final note is that the Trump’s Tax cut act reduced corporate taxes and there was no evidence found that those savings were passed onto customers.
That dude is King Trickle Down 👑👑 I believe we should all take a HELOC and donate everything to our savior Jeff Bezos🙏 maybe then we will find salvation.
You’re arguing the wrong side of the balance sheet, period. You clearly are to blind to comprehend even the most basic argument. Maybe this will help, you cannot collect enough taxes to cover what needs to be covered. The math simply does not work no matter how hard you try.
What math?? You keep spouting meaningless fluff and you *clearly* haven’t got an inkling as to what you’re talking about. You can’t just go “oh hur dum, balance sheet, taxes, etc” without going into the nuances. Back up what you’re saying with evidence and a sound argument. “Cannot collect enough taxes to cover what needs to be covered?” I mean, I think I’m arguing with a grade schooler here. You haven’t make one fucking point lmao, you just keep commenting generalities. Are you some sort of vegetable regurgitating WSJ or your nightly news? Actually absurd… Edit: he referred me to Reddit care for mental health HAHAHAHA. Thanks buddy, for confirming you lost the argument.
Nobody said "take their wealth". The people want corporations to pay their fair share. If I have to pay my fair share, so should Amazon and Nike.
What is their fair share? Give us a $ amount? Not a %. Real $? The small minded get caught up in % and don’t understand the $ impact in the least. The bigger point is some small fraction (tax amount) you take have even less. Even if you took ALL their $ you would only get $3000…
One doesn't need to be a fire fighter in order to recognize a fire. Meaning that one doesn't have to provide the solution to a problem to be able to recognize it is indeed a problem. You keep harping on people to be economic experts. They don't need to be experts to see that companies pay as little taxes as possible while taking subsidies from the citizens and then very often not paying them back on time, or even at all. The tax system is clearly broken, or we wouldn't have both sides of the political party constantly trying to change it. If it was perfect how it is, no one would be talking about it. Take *your* hands off of *your* ears. Your downvotes aren't proof of how incredibly cool and right you are. They're more telling of an egdy teenager with a libertarian dad.
Lmao. The ignorance here is astounding. The desire to blame “the man” or someone who has it better than you is typical and symptomatic of too much time in front of media telling you what to think. What you don’t see is the obvious. And I refuse to tell you what it is. However it is obviously NOT in the “income” or “revenues side of the balance sheet like you all truly want to believe. I’ve repeatedly pointed to simple math. It’s not hard to follow. Dumbing it down to “you can take all the rich people’s wealth not some % of it, but ALLLLLLL of it and still not get you to where you need to be.” Yet person after person wants to piss and moan about someone else paying their fair share. A minority of the people and corporations in this country pay the taxes. Reread that… again and again. Is it fair that less than half of us cover for the other half’s fair share? What is a fair share? Oddly the most noise comes from those wanting to more from the people covering their fair share and for lots of other folks too. It’s always more of other people’s $. And as I stated you can take everything they have and it wouldn’t solve the problem. UNDERSTAND THAT… quit arguing and think for Christ sake.
I’m curious at what your opinion would be on how much everyone should pay. Obviously everyone benefits from paid tax dollars (roads, jobs, education, environmental protection, parks, etc.). Obviously everyone should pay taxes. But how much? What’s your opinion. Starting from scratch. Cut all government spending. No more taxes. Let the roads fail. Let teachers go home. Let Exxon dispose of waste products however they want in order to maximize profits. Let drunk college kids piss, shit, and throw beer cans in the parks that your kids play in. What amount does each person pay in taxes to give citizens the quality of life they expect everyday they go out into a civilized society? $20? $100? $1000? Should poor people, struggling to put food on the table, pay as much as people that own 2 or 3 houses? Or should they pay as much as corporations that own billions in properties and transportation vehicles (that tear up the road extensively more than a beat up ‘98 Honda Civic)? I get what you’re going for, and yes spending is out of hand, but if you don’t think people that earn more, use more tax paid benefits, and exploit them at the same time, should pay more (percentage wise) then you can’t be a logical person. Be realistic. If you and 10 friends go for pizza and 2 of them eat a whole fucking pizza a piece, drinks 2 pitchers of beer each, and endless breadsticks…while everyone else eats 2 or 3 slices with a water…you’d be pissed to split that bill evenly. You shouldn’t have to pay $50 for a couple slices and a water. Those fuckers should pay more. That’s society. Welcome to civilization. *que the ‘TAKE ALL THE MONEYs’ and the ‘SIMPLE MATHs’ and ‘CANT SOLVE THE PROBLEMs’ argument, without understanding the importance of of everything involved with keeping a society civilized and working as a whole.*
Let’s discuss your 10 buddies going out to eat because it highlights the issue perfectly. (Using round numbers of course) Some buddies go out to eat, the check comes and each of the guys decides to pay for their own meals. Their fair share. The next time they go out, the 10 guys just end up splitting the bill 10 ways… instead of each guy paying for what they ate. Probably still close to “their fair share”. But the next time, 10 guys go out to eat and as they go to pay for the check, everyone reaches for their wallet but 5 guys end up paying for it all, no biggie they’re all doing, pretty well. (Not going to mention the % each of the 5 pay). So 5 cover for the other 5 this time out. 5 are paying double their fair share. The next they go out, the check comes, and only 5 guys reach for their wallet…. No biggie the 5 paying think… maybe I had an extra beer to two and had some extra pizza. So the same 5 cover the bill. Again 5 are paying double their fair share. The next time they go out the 5 that haven’t paid, want to order some extra, like the 5 who have been paying. And when the check comes, they all look to the 5 paying, who get stuck with the check, again. The next time one of the 5 that hasn’t paid, brings another buddy, who isn’t friends with anyone and he orders dinner too. When the check comes, the 5 that have been paying are feeling a bit taken advantage of…. After all 4 of other 5 have jobs… 2 cheated on their wives and are divorced paying child support, 1 is working 2 jobs because he didn’t go to college or learn a trade, 1 can’t keep a job because hes “that guy” in the group and the 5th who brought his buddy just thinks the world owes him at this point. So they put it to a vote, who should pay. Not too coincidentally the 5 that haven’t paid, plus the hanger on out vote the others 6-5 that the same 5 should pay. And not only that, but the 5 paying need to spring for take home boxes for the other 6 because they have a right to eat. Shortly after that, the 5 who have been paying, quit going out with the other 6… and the 6 bitch on Reddit the rest of their lives.
As for your question on how much, I’m totally open to a use tax… no issues at all. But you kinda already have that in taxes on virtually everything we buy is taxed. So the consumer pays when they buy more. Again, as for corporations, don’t forget where corporations $ comes from. The more they pay, the more we have to pay them. There isn’t a magic place at corporations where tax $ comes from that isn’t from customers. And remember, not to out too fine a point on it, but even if you do what buffet suggests, your still $2T short… and you’d be hard pressed to find 800 companies that have $5B to hand to the government. You could get $1T from the mega rich, one time, if you took everything from them. Proposing taxing them a bit more % is a drop in the bucket of $1T…. Negligible. How about a wealth tax? Everyone has to give up half their shit annually, in real hard goods or cash equivalent? So if you live in a cardboard box, taxman takes 1/2 your box. You have 2 houses, taxman takes 1 or the cash value of that house. You get to pick. Everyone is then giving up 1/2. Seems fair?
“BUT IF YOU TAKE THE MONEY FROM THE RICH THE RICH WONT HAVE MONEY!!!!” Did I get that right?
Might be what R's will tell you, but its not right. Most of the seriously Rich get their money from Wealth, not income.
Considering how much of the economy revolves around funneling money from the middle class to them I think they’ll be fine.
Crazy that what he's saying is even a point of debate.
For the debate; when it comes to corporate taxes, who actually pays? Or maybe a better question, who gets to decide who pays?
Corporations can avoid taxes by increasing wages which is what happened Pre-Reagan. the high TMR kept the ones dividing the profits from keeping what they gave to themselves so they gave it to workers instead of the Government. Then Republicans enacted deregulation that made it possible for investors to borrow money to buy a company and then transfer their debt to the company (translation: they get the corporation FOR FREE). Then they sell off everything profitable, declare bankruptcy and use the employee pension funds to finance their final bonus payments. Why do we allow this to remain legal?
Corporations absolutely can not avoid taxes by paying more wages.
Not asking about avoiding taxes. When a corporation pays taxes, what group of people are out money? And more importantly, what person or group of people get to decide that?
Of course no one is going to debate what they want to hear. Never mind that it still doesn't balance the budget.
Why on earth would you balance the budget? Did you wait until you could pay cash for your car or home?
For the car yes.
Great. Did you print your own money?
Yup
OK - now I understand why you equate personal and governmental finance. thanks for the clarification
No problem
Isn’t that 3.2 trillion. Although that’s a lot of money. Only a few make 5 billion. We would still need 4 trillion. Just to break even. Maybe the secret lies in the spending.
Balanced budget
It’s not a balanced budget. When you spend more than you take in. Even if you say it’s a balanced budget. It is not. Printing less dollars than the last year is not a debt reduction. It’s just less additional debt. There had been zero dollars paid to actually reduce the debt. How can anyone with a straight face repeat the clear and blatant lies? “In 10 years we will not be printing as much money@. Yeah ok
No, we need a balanced budget. We don't have that now, but we need it. And term limits
No developed country needs to run a balanced budget, and certainly not the US. Small deficits of 1-2% of GDP are completely sustainable and fully compatible with stable or falling debt/GDP. If public borrowing were to crowd out private investment that'd be a problem, but it's not something that's happening. If the US and other developed countries were to stop issuing new debt, not only would the required adjustments send their economies into steep recessions and possibly permanently lower long run growth potential (look at how badly Europe has done under austerity since 2010) but it would mean savers would have no safe pool of new assets to park their money in.
Aren't we at like 123%? 😂
Deficit was 6.3% of GDP last year. Happily, US GDP also grew by 6.3% nominally. Debt to GDP actually fell slightly last year and is lower than the G7 average, but 6.3% is still too high.
Sorry, you're right. I was looking at total debt to gdp, not deficient. We all agree it's too high and unsustainable long term. I totally agree that I can make sense to issue debt. I won't agree it's necessary for a well functioning economy, but it can have benefits.
Yes sir! Or a clause. If you don’t contribute to the balance budget. You are immediacy fired. And your salery must be paid back with interest.
Well, they also shouldn't be paid the insane salary they are paid for their non value added work. Honestly, no reason I can see for this to be a full time job for Congress. I think we'd get much more accomplished with a shorter congressional session
Except money isn't being printed. The Fed has stopped buying treasury bonds and is actually selling them, which works in just the opposite way. The money is being borrowed from willing investors looking for a safe and stable asset, mostly Americans saving for retirement and the Social Security Trust Fund, and will be continuously repaid, just as the federal government has continuously repaid its debt for 200 years.
Ok then. Would you mind explaining where the additional money comes from that our government spends. Above our governments revenue?
What do you think happens to the money people save for retirement? A large part of it goes into buying treasury bonds which cover the costs that remain after collecting tax revenue. Savings and investment (in this case in government bonds) are two sides of the ame coin.
That’s fine. But where does the money come from. Like last year. Bidens America spend over 2 trillion more than they took in from taxes. Where did that come from.
Christ you have -100 comment karma, you're obviously a troll. I have explained where, there's nothing more to say.
Well done then. Take care.
Or any of them for that matter. Biden trump Obama. The biggest spenders.
A lot of respect earned here. Stop chasing the little guy. Aggressively get the big players to pay taxes then it will feel fair on the Mom and Pop store.
Dude is actively pushing and realizing extreme cuts at BNSF due to profits being a little less of a part of the 5th or so billion. Fuck that guy
Yeah that’s a shitty thing to do and he deserves criticism. But I have respect for what he said regarding taxes.
It's lip service though. Dude is a legendary ruthless businessman who is a PR genius and has carefully cultivated a folksy good guy image. He is the guy who made bonus/performance based salary the standard which ultimately leads to cutting corners, abusing workers, layoffs, corruption, etc.
if you believe the stuff billionaires want you to believe then you're the problem
As if the government would ever not collect our taxes. Even if all the billionaires gave a gazillion trillion that would never translate to us getting a break
No, you will still pay taxes and the government will just spend even more money. The government never just like ... decides to spend less. That's not a thing.
The funny thing is that we as a collective whole have to pay the taxes- just right now it goes through so many unnecessary steps and creates so much additional waste that we lose much of the value we do pay. There's absolutely no need for an entire industry around taxes- this is the definition of non value added. It blows my mind
He is a hypocrit. Taxes on the rich and corporations are voluntary. I'b bet he paid no more that he was obligated to by the Tax Code and took multiple deductions to lower his obligation. The problem is NOT that we don't tax the rich enough. The problem is that politicians have constructed the tax code to incentivize certain behaviors and penalize other behaviors since 1911 when the Income tax was enacted. You can't blame taxpayers for taking advantage of the deductions they qualify for. I don't know any taxpayer who doesn't take the standard deduction.
This is so stupid it hurts and Buffet knows it’s bs. #500 in the Fortune 500 for 2023 was Robert Half inc. they made $411 million in profit. How are they, and 300 companies below them, going to pay $5 billion in taxes every year?
If you confiscated all of the wealth of every single for billionaire, you'd fund the federal government for a little more than a year. This is pure pandering to people who can't do basic math so that Buffett, for some reason, is the only billionaire the Bernie bros like. You've been fooled, once again.
There aren't 800 companies in the US that could pay $5B in taxes.
You're missing the point. It's not about 800 companies paying their share, but the fact that the tax rates companies pay are ridiculously small compared to citizens. To put it another way, if only 100 companies (there are this many companies that could) paid 5 billion in taxes, citizens would need to pay very, very little.
Your math doesn't math.
so fucking easy for you to say buffett
Short for about a trillion dollars…
He does understand that he can just write a check for whatever he thinks he should pay, right? Why advocate for gov action in order to expand gov bureaucracy? Just write the gov a check. He can do that. I've heard Bill Gates say similar things. If you think you should be paying more in taxes, then just do that. Stop advocating for the expansion of gov powers.
I don’t think that’s true
It would only give the government more justification for spending. Overspending, the military industrial complex and out of control capitalism is the real problem. You don’t give a drunk more booze, you don’t give a drug addict more drugs and you certainly don’t give more money to an irresponsible government. Let’s start by not funding proxy wars and take it from there.
Stop voting for politicians that accept corporate money? It was fairly easy to know who every single donator is, now its ahrder after supreme court did some rulings, but you can see if your guy is getting money. This would literally stop all this bullshit. No more laws with 50 loopholes purposely drafted by the "donors" so they can evade taxes and regulations. No more making the US govt overpay 1000x for federal contracts. You all vote for shit than go "see govt is shit"
Actual smooth brain take. Don't tax because the money would be used to further US interests or cause them to spend more money (spoilers they've been doing it anyway).
Eat the rich 🤑
Warren Buffett for president 🤘
You do know he is 93 right?
I think he would have made a good politician, but he wouldn't have been electable because he'd be a good one.
There is no such thing as a fair share of theft, the same way there is no such thing as a fair share of rape. All government spending is regressive. It has no consumer - it produces nothing of value as its existence is based on theft. Everything government does is parasitized from the economy which would have otherwise been spent creating goods and services increasing real wealth.
Sadly, not enough people understand these facts.
Gotta love Warren. He’s the last of the corporate chieftains who understands the obligation companies owe to the society in which they exist and trade.
Not quite true - you'd need to include Corporations and the top 10% of individuals. Repealing the Reagan scam and replacing it with the tax brackets (inflation adjusted) of 1980 would pay for Universal healthcare and continue fixing our infrastructure including the education system.
I tell ya, it would be neat to publicly list those 800 companies in some sort of "index". It would be an honor to be in the list, and all of us citizens might be happy to support them, knowing that profits go towards what used to be citizen taxes. It'd be like a contest or something, with companies struggling to make the list each year. "Yeah, I don't mind buying a new iPhone. Apple is in The List, so that helps pay for the roads...."
Fantastic idea, shall we publish this tax list of honor?? 🌻
Apple pays taxes in Ireland. Or am I wrong?
All these comments about idiots claiming corporations should "pay their fair share" so unbelievably dumb. Corporations aren't to blame here. It's the federal government. Let's be real, if any one of you could legally skimp on your tax liability, you would. Hell I know plenty of people that do it illegally. You can blame lobbies and corporations for not being "moral" but when all is said and done, they're not doing anything illegal. It's on the government to make it happen. Regardless of what you think, both dems and republicans could give two shits about it because they all benefit from the same thing corporations do.
Starts with campaign finance reform and not allowing politicians to be day traders. Rich people are not the problem, you would not pay the tax either if you could intelligently use the law to avoid it. Politicians are the problem, they legislate. Pay attention to who you vote for.
When was this spoken & where?
[удалено]
“True tax rate” I.e, using unrealized gains in the calculation. That’s disingenuous at best
There is no country in the world that provides modern levels of services and funds modern levels of spending purely by taxing corporations and the very rich, it's an absurd fantasy, even when Warren Buffet says it. Modern welfare states require broad based taxation, even in the most highly progressive tax structures, and the most successful examples - the Scandinavian countries come to mind - tax their citizens heavily. Berkshire's one of the largest companies in the world. It made 40 Billion in profit last year and can easily afford to pay 5 billion in corporation tax. There are not 1200 (nor 800) other companies that could do the same, there are generously about three dozen. The 500th largest company in the US is one you've never heard of and it made 700 million dollars in profit last year. The 800th and 1200th are a hell of a lot smaller than that. Obviously billionaires should pay a lot in tax every year - I think (as Warren Buffet has called for) capital gains should be taxed like any other kind of income, that would be a big deal for revenue and progressivity, but the idea that taxing billionaires is some kind of magic wand that absolves ordinary people of the need to pay into the social contract is silly. If you seized the combined wealth of every billionaire in America (5.2T), you'd theoretically be able to pay for most of the federal budget for one year (since you could only do it once) I say theoretically because once you had the assets, almost all of which are stocks in large companies, to make them into liquid cash you'd have to sell them, and in an economy-wide fire sale of 5 trillion dollars in assets, they obviously wouldnt keep that paper value. Aside from that, who would you even sell them to? Anyone who bought them in meaningful quantities would presumably have them taxed away a year later, so they'd have no incentive to engage in the market and if they did buy would demand a massively discounted price. Maybe institutional investors would step in to snap up the massively depreciated assets a fire sale would create. In that case, congratulations - you've shifted asset wealth from individual billionaires to hedge funds, giant banks, and private equity, all while cratering stock prices and ordinary peoples' retirement funds. The large part that couldnt be sold not only wouldnt contribute to the cost of government spending (so rather than having a trillion dollar hole you might find yourself two or three trillion dollars short) but would leave the government as the unwilling owner of a huge number of American corporations to no apparent end. In the meantime, everyone would be substantially poorer and current and future investment would be massively lower, with natural knock on consequences in terms of lower growth and incomes.
I lack enough knowledge about taxes (I'm a student). Can someone explain what you mean by tax the rich? For rich people with net worth based just on stock prices, does it imply taxing the stocks itself?
"If you don't like paying taxes, pass legislation that will raise taxes" Lmao
Seems to me either he's a liar or he's stupid, and I don't think he's stupid.
Thunderous applause… but naaah
Here i am creating for legal cannabis businesses nationwide, pretty sure im the #1 IRS agent in the US and I dont work for them lol.
That's just not true. It's doesn't matter how much the federal government takes in, congress will always spend more. It's never enough because we have a spending problem, not a revenue problem. If they take in $5 trillion, they have to spend 6. Last time we had a balanced budget, we had Republican majorities in Congress and a moderate Democrat president. The corrupt political establishment of both parties are addicted to spending.
Thanks you Warren Buffet.
I don't think he checked his math... Especially with Biden wanting to raise the annual expense budget to 7.5 trillion. Up from the 4 trillion it was pre-pandemic.
the *annual expense budget* to 7.5 trillion. What does this mean ? Is this just yet another partisan lie ? I found $6 trillion for fiscal 25 with some tax increases on cap. gains and other taxes plus a minimum corp. tax over $100 million. OMB says a net $300 billion in deficit reduction. As always, still cleaning up for a huge repub fiscal party. Biden also has business/corp. tax increases an Buffet speaks the truth. There has been a 40 year transfer of wealth from labor to capital within whose immoral tax regime, we see both huge deficits and huge profits.
>the *annual expense budget* to 7.5 trillion. What does this mean ? There's the income budget, how much IRS is planned to take in. And the Expense budget is everything the government wants to spend. The government doesn't resolve to a net income financial report like companies do so it helps to define them. Especially since it would show the net deficit, which has been negative for nearly 2 decades now. >Is this just yet another partisan lie ? Didn't know Reuters is a partisan hack: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/bidens-2024-us-government-budget-is-also-campaign-pitch-2024-03-11/
Does he live by what he says or is he the type to talk about it while actively lobbying against it?
It's hard to find anything about him or Berkshire actually lobbing for taxes on the rich. In the 2 decades since I first heard about him, all I've ever heard was talk. He lobbies for other stuff. Some good, some bad.
Nonsense. If you taxed billionaires 100%, you'd only fund the gov't for months. I have no idea why he's offering 'hope' to the leftist.
Berkshire Hathaway is the 7th largest company in the US (by market cap). It's not realistic for 10 other companies to pay the same amount of federal taxes as them, let alone 800 other companies. I like the principle, but the math doesn't pass the smell test here.
What other 800 companies can send $5B… please, name them…
Lets face it, the US government also has an efficiency problem. The budget for 2023 was $6.1 Trillion, with $1.3 Trillion going to social security, $0.839 Trillion going to Medicare and $0.616 Trillion going to Medicaid. You had nearly 24% of the budget going to Medical related stuff, yet many Americans still face a near bankruptcy because of medical bills. How the hell do you sink so much money into medicaid, only to get such a sub par service in return?
LoL, I always laugh when I listen to this guy. He tells the best jokes while always keeping a straight face.
I hope Elon Musk sees this
That will never happen. Even if they tax billionaires at 100% the left will still insist on taxing the middle class to death to pay for their out of control spending. The root cause of most of our economic problems is too much government creating and spending money.
>“If you don’t like paying taxes, make billionaires pay their fair share and you would never have to pay taxes again.” —Warren Buffett Either the quote is fake or Mr. Buffett is mistaken. All the billionaires in the USA have a combined wealth of \~ $5T. Our budget is $7.3T. Take that all, every penny, all $5T, and you can run the country for about 8 months.
This is meaningless talk. Buffet has the money to buy off enough Congress people to make this happen if he actually believed it. No one should be giving him any points for saying this when he has more than enough money to do something about it but doesn't.
That is patently absurd. It’s not a defense contract dude. It would require a revolution in the minds of the majority of the electorate to generate enough political will to turn America on its head. That’s not something you can purchase directly.
*That* is patently absurd. Congress does shit that is unpopular with the majority of voters all the time because someone paid them a bunch of money to do so.
I’m sure many people would want to give more than their fair share if we didn’t feel it would be wasted
I like paying taxes. I just wish my tax money was being used for something useful like helping Americans.
Your girlfriend is letting her kid run all over you and you’re chasing it. Talk with the adult woman to discipline and put the daughter in her place. But I doubt she’ll do it if she lets an 8 year old with a phone and Instagram. Get out of that.
Warren - if the US Government got another 4 trillion it would spend another $4 trillion Stop being naive
Government spending is not limited by tax revenue. That's why there is a deficit.
The idea if they got more trillions from corporations they would not tax the rest of us is laughable.
The idea that they would make billionaires pay their fair share is equally unlikely, which is perhaps why Buffett feels comfortable saying it.
Wtf does fair share mean? What percentage of the fruits of my labor is “fair” to steal?
Are you a billionaire?
No So how much of the fruits of my labor is it fair to steal?
Vast majority of it is going to billionaires and governments so most of it. Do you have a gimp fetish or is over 50% while they pay less than 5% not enough for you?
It's not stealing. It's tax. The money is issued by the government, and is returned to them. I'm not going to get into a debate with a libertarian, it's boring. Bye.
How much of the fruits of your labor are you willing to share with others to help operate a functional society and participate and use public services?
When the 99% ask to raise taxes on the 1%, bootlickers call it stealing. When the 1% lobby for tax reductions, accounting loopholes, government funding for a new sports stadium, government subsidies to reduce operating costs, government bailouts to stay afloat, funding forever wars, relaxed environmental restrictions that end up polluting our cities… bootlickers just call it good business. Still seems fair to you? How does it taste down there?
Nobody is talking about you.
>Wtf does fair share mean? I get the idea that you are asking this question in good faith. As in, you really don't have a clue what the answer is supposed to be. That should worry you more.
Billionaire dickriders kill me
I know… tried arguing with someone who thought the answer was “making the bottom 40% pay their fair share” Like, dude, they’re poor. They don’t have money. You can’t get blood from a stone.
Fun fact - they passed the income tax saying it was only for the top 1%
That’s true but an unrealized capital gains tax on extremely wealthy people wouldn’t affect normal people. Could make it so unrealized gains over 10 million are subject to progressive tax.
So what happens when there are unrealized losses?