3 ms·

Well, if we take $2k payments and make them monthly, in a decade or so we'll reach a meaningful percentage of the direct costs of the Iraq/Afghan wars.

Alupis 6y ago
$2,000 x 150,000,000 = $300,000,000,000 That's 300 billion dollars every month... And that's for only 150 million adults...(there's a lot more than that) It's estimated to have cost about 3 Trillion dollars for the Iraq war, a 17+ year conflict[1]. At $300 billion a month (on the extreme low end), that's $3 Trillion every 10 months. Put another way - we could fund another 17+ year long armed conflict every 10 months at that rate. The entire 2021 federal budget is projected to be around 4.8 Trillion... and they estimate they'll only bring in $3.8 Trillion in revenue. Disregarding that your projection is grossly innacurate, how is this something we can do? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War#Indirect_and_delayed_costs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_W...
- pashamur 6y ago
  I know this is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, but raise the top marginal tax rates. Not a nominal raise, but something significant, like 20%. And the cap gains rate as well. Basically move to a more redistributive system like Europe, which can afford to do this for a lot of their citizens. That's how we've funded war-like efforts in the past, and if this is likened to a WWII style mobilization effort (which it has been by several politicians, then the well off citizens need to pitch in much more than they are now).
  - Alupis 6y ago
    It would simply not be enough. If you took all of Bill Gates' ($107 billion) and all of Jeff Bezos' ($145 billion) and all of Larry Ellison's ($59 billion) money... every single penny, you'd still wouldn't be able to pay for even a single complete month of this program. It's an enormous amount of money. What the Nordic counties do doesn't scale to the third largest country by population... Not to mention they don't pay for their own military protection (barely) among other differences. Funded wars? Wars have almost always involved massive debt being taken on by the federal government. It's just simply not feasible to run that way for long term.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      > What the Nordic counties do doesn't scale to the third largest country by population Why does the absolute population number matter in this case? Whether you have 1 million people or 300 million, the viability of any tax scheme hinges on the relative proportions. In any case, what Nordics actually do is tax everybody's salaries. Not just the rich, but also the middle class.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        > Why does the absolute population number matter in this case? Because GDP and total potential tax revenue isn't proportional like you assume. In Norway's case (5 million pop, $434 Billion GDP), that's $86,800 per person. In the US' case (328 million pop, $20.5 Trillion GDP), that's $62,500 per person. A small country with a couple very successful businesses can spread that total potential tax revenue further. Particularly if they don't pay much for their defense costs, but I digress. In the US, we have a lot more people, and most of those aren't high earners and don't contribute much to the GDP nor tax revenue. It's estimated about 76 million Americans pay zero federal taxes[1]. The point was, at our scale, we'd be doubling our national budget to accomplish this any way you look at it. That's going to require a lot more than just taxing the rich more. It's going to require a lot more than just taxing everyone more. The scale of this is difficult to think about. People often point to the bloated military budget as something to pull from. Well, the projected 2021 budget for the entire DoD is $740 Billion. At the rate of spending we're discussing, that's just about only 2 months of this program... to the cost of having zero military. All that for what purpose? Just to give some of it back every month? That would basically just be a "feel-good" program then... confiscate your money and give it right back to you in a government stipend. I just don't see a realistic way to pull this sort of program off. Unless we take it down to something more reasonable like $100 a month... which would only be $15 Billion per month, $180 Billion per year. That's much more manageable... but what's $100 going to do realistically? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-do-you-have-to-make-to-file-taxes https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-do...
        int_19h 6y ago

Alupis 6y ago

$2,000 x 150,000,000 = $300,000,000,000 That's 300 billion dollars every month... And that's for only 150 million adults...(there's a lot more than that) It's estimated to have cost about 3 Trillion dollars for the Iraq war, a 17+ year conflict[1]. At $300 billion a month (on the extreme low end), that's $3 Trillion every 10 months. Put another way - we could fund another 17+ year long armed conflict every 10 months at that rate. The entire 2021 federal budget is projected to be around 4.8 Trillion... and they estimate they'll only bring in $3.8 Trillion in revenue. Disregarding that your projection is grossly innacurate, how is this something we can do? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War#Indirect_and_delayed_costs https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_W...

pashamur 6y ago
I know this is going to ruffle a lot of feathers, but raise the top marginal tax rates. Not a nominal raise, but something significant, like 20%. And the cap gains rate as well. Basically move to a more redistributive system like Europe, which can afford to do this for a lot of their citizens. That's how we've funded war-like efforts in the past, and if this is likened to a WWII style mobilization effort (which it has been by several politicians, then the well off citizens need to pitch in much more than they are now).
- Alupis 6y ago
  It would simply not be enough. If you took all of Bill Gates' ($107 billion) and all of Jeff Bezos' ($145 billion) and all of Larry Ellison's ($59 billion) money... every single penny, you'd still wouldn't be able to pay for even a single complete month of this program. It's an enormous amount of money. What the Nordic counties do doesn't scale to the third largest country by population... Not to mention they don't pay for their own military protection (barely) among other differences. Funded wars? Wars have almost always involved massive debt being taken on by the federal government. It's just simply not feasible to run that way for long term.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    > What the Nordic counties do doesn't scale to the third largest country by population Why does the absolute population number matter in this case? Whether you have 1 million people or 300 million, the viability of any tax scheme hinges on the relative proportions. In any case, what Nordics actually do is tax everybody's salaries. Not just the rich, but also the middle class.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      > Why does the absolute population number matter in this case? Because GDP and total potential tax revenue isn't proportional like you assume. In Norway's case (5 million pop, $434 Billion GDP), that's $86,800 per person. In the US' case (328 million pop, $20.5 Trillion GDP), that's $62,500 per person. A small country with a couple very successful businesses can spread that total potential tax revenue further. Particularly if they don't pay much for their defense costs, but I digress. In the US, we have a lot more people, and most of those aren't high earners and don't contribute much to the GDP nor tax revenue. It's estimated about 76 million Americans pay zero federal taxes[1]. The point was, at our scale, we'd be doubling our national budget to accomplish this any way you look at it. That's going to require a lot more than just taxing the rich more. It's going to require a lot more than just taxing everyone more. The scale of this is difficult to think about. People often point to the bloated military budget as something to pull from. Well, the projected 2021 budget for the entire DoD is $740 Billion. At the rate of spending we're discussing, that's just about only 2 months of this program... to the cost of having zero military. All that for what purpose? Just to give some of it back every month? That would basically just be a "feel-good" program then... confiscate your money and give it right back to you in a government stipend. I just don't see a realistic way to pull this sort of program off. Unless we take it down to something more reasonable like $100 a month... which would only be $15 Billion per month, $180 Billion per year. That's much more manageable... but what's $100 going to do realistically? [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-do-you-have-to-make-to-file-taxes https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/how-much-do...
      - int_19h 6y ago