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0 pointsdanny_codes3y ago0 comments

Most of our money does not go to the military. Defense spending is about 700b per year, while the budget is over 4t.

The government doesn't need to handle capitol allocation. We can simply shift the tax burden upwards. Poorer people get reduced tax, rich people get more.

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9887473y ago

Poor people already pay next to nothing in taxes - the bottom 60% of society, making less than $50k only contributes 7% of total tax revenue from income taxes, while 0.3% of those making more than $1M per year contributes 27%. [1]

I think the US has pretty good revenue structure in that regard. In my country 62% of federal budget comes from sales taxes (e.g. 23% VAT), which disproportionately affects poor people.

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/january/feder...

greedo3y ago

Your first sentence ignores what you say in the second. In the US, poor people pay a significant portion of their income in sales tax which is regressive.

9887473y ago

Yes, I kind of missed that. On the other hand, sales tax in the US is very low compared to European VAT (0-7% vs 18-25% VAT), so it's much smaller issue.

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Beldin3y ago

I would suggest to think of this not in terms of contribution to the whole, but percentage of ($income - $housing - $food - $stdxpenses). With $stdxpenses covering standard living expenses including energy, water, basic insurance, basic commute.

I would be somewhat surprised (rather flabbergasted) if rich folks paid anywhere close to the percentage that poor people do.

In other words: if you want to compare by measuring contribution, measure tax rate to what's left for that individual's personal use.

robertlagrant3y ago

> Poorer people get reduced tax, rich people get more.

This already happens. Many people either don't pay tax, or pay less tax than they cost.

> The government doesn't need to handle capitol allocation.

Then who will spend the tax money?

spinchange3y ago

The working poor pay into FICA which is a greater percentage of their cash flow. They get it back upon annual tax reconciliation. The same entitlement programs nonetheless have lots of unfunded liabilities so the money has already been allocated even if it's not currently "there" -- 'The Rich' are beneficiaries of entitlement spending too.

robertlagrant3y ago

It's a simpler situation than that. Regardless of proportions of payment, we already have a percentage of the population whose public services are paid for by someone else, either directly through income or divided tax or indirectly through higher prices from corporation tax, or more indirectly through inflationary monetary policy.

In other words: we don't need to invent taxing people with more money more. We have that. Millions of people are partly or fully paid for by others. We might want to adjust it, but we don't need to pretend we're doing something revolutionary in doing so.

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9887473y ago

I think the US has pretty good revenue structure in that regard. In my country 62% of federal budget comes from sales taxes (e.g. 23% VAT), which disproportionately affects poor people.

[1] https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2017/january/feder...

greedo3y ago

Your first sentence ignores what you say in the second. In the US, poor people pay a significant portion of their income in sales tax which is regressive.

9887473y ago

Yes, I kind of missed that. On the other hand, sales tax in the US is very low compared to European VAT (0-7% vs 18-25% VAT), so it's much smaller issue.

1 more reply

Beldin3y ago

I would be somewhat surprised (rather flabbergasted) if rich folks paid anywhere close to the percentage that poor people do.

In other words: if you want to compare by measuring contribution, measure tax rate to what's left for that individual's personal use.

robertlagrant3y ago

> Poorer people get reduced tax, rich people get more.

This already happens. Many people either don't pay tax, or pay less tax than they cost.

> The government doesn't need to handle capitol allocation.

Then who will spend the tax money?

spinchange3y ago

robertlagrant3y ago

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