4 ms·

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 ga

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
      I did some number crunching on UBI a while ago. It's totally doable by taxing everybody more with heavily progressive taxes.
      - Alupis 6y ago
        Sorry if I don't just take your word for it. As I've laid out... you gotta come up with $3+ Trillion more every year... at a bare minimum. The real numbers probably look closer to $4-5 Trillion if the plan is to give everyone over 18 this $2,000 monthly, plus you have all this Bureaucracy you'll need to manage this program. You gotta double the national budget and then some. There are no numbers that make sense to pull that off. It's a fantasy to think otherwise.
        int_19h 6y ago
        You forget that with real UBI funded by progressive taxation, people past a certain point pay more into the system that they get from it. So in practice, not everybody actually gets $2000 more every month relative to their current income. I would suggest taking IRS numbers for various income tax brackets, putting them into Excel, and playing with the numbers to see just how progressive you need to make the tax to make sure that nobody gets less than minimum wage, for starters. I'd share my spreadsheet if I still have that around. The bureaucracy to manage such a program is orders of magnitude less than for any other welfare program, because it's not means-tested. In fact, since IRS already has the bureaucracy and the logistics to handle tax returns, there's no reason why this couldn't be tacked onto that.

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
    I did some number crunching on UBI a while ago. It's totally doable by taxing everybody more with heavily progressive taxes.
    - Alupis 6y ago
      Sorry if I don't just take your word for it. As I've laid out... you gotta come up with $3+ Trillion more every year... at a bare minimum. The real numbers probably look closer to $4-5 Trillion if the plan is to give everyone over 18 this $2,000 monthly, plus you have all this Bureaucracy you'll need to manage this program. You gotta double the national budget and then some. There are no numbers that make sense to pull that off. It's a fantasy to think otherwise.
      - int_19h 6y ago
        You forget that with real UBI funded by progressive taxation, people past a certain point pay more into the system that they get from it. So in practice, not everybody actually gets $2000 more every month relative to their current income. I would suggest taking IRS numbers for various income tax brackets, putting them into Excel, and playing with the numbers to see just how progressive you need to make the tax to make sure that nobody gets less than minimum wage, for starters. I'd share my spreadsheet if I still have that around. The bureaucracy to manage such a program is orders of magnitude less than for any other welfare program, because it's not means-tested. In fact, since IRS already has the bureaucracy and the logistics to handle tax returns, there's no reason why this couldn't be tacked onto that.