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This is why their plan to eliminate income tax and make up the difference with tariffs is just hilariously evil. It's literally shifting tax burden from rich to

This is why their plan to eliminate income tax and make up the difference with tariffs is just hilariously evil. It's literally shifting tax burden from rich to poor.

nicce 2y ago
Ooh. I never thought this from tariffs. Now it makes perfectly sense.
prometheus76 2y ago
Rich people don't pay income taxes. They pay capital gains taxes. They typically don't have income, or very little income compared to capital gains.
- Salgat 2y ago
  And the beauty is that long term capital gains is capped at 20%. That's a lower overall rate than what my family pays in taxes. The rich got it made.
  - polski-g 2y ago
    The top 10% of America pay 75% of all taxes received -- the top 25% pay for 89%. https://www.ntu.org/library/doclib/2024/02/2021-who-pays-2-.pdf https://www.ntu.org/library/doclib/2024/02/2021-who-pays-2-....
    - mkipper 2y ago
      Conveniently, there's no mention of the 0.1% in there, and the historical data comparing the tax contribution of the top 1% to the total tax base doesn't include any information on income and wealth growth of the 1% over that same time period. Weird! But given that the organization who published that was founded by a Newsmax board member, I'm sure they're trying to paint a clear and unbiased picture of things.
    - Salgat 2y ago
      400 families own the same wealth as 160 million Americans, so they better be paying far more in taxes. In fact, given how much taxes eat into basic living expenses for the bottom 50%, the rich should be paying even more in taxes.
- skyyler 2y ago
  The fact that capital gains are differently taxed than worker income is further evidence that the game is stacked in favor of the rich.
  - rgbrgb 2y ago
    I don't disagree with your broader point, but isn't the lower cap gains tax rate also incentive design to reward investment over pure consumption?
    - oooyay 2y ago
      Yes, but it very much matters why you're doing it. Someone who doesn't have enough money to functionally retire, even if they're wealthy, is doing it to get closer to a retirement number. "Rich" people as described here, that make a majority of their money on investment ROI, are playing an entirely different ball game with the same mechanics.
    - skizm 2y ago
      Specifically long term investment, which is why you only get the benefit of lower taxes after a year.
      - SR2Z 2y ago
        And we need to reward this behavior SO MUCH that we'll drop more than half of the taxes? People will invest as long as the taxes aren't worse than income taxes. We don't need this much "encouragement" because stock market returns are high enough already.
    - roncesvalles 2y ago
      I don't see how that follows. A salaried person has to bootstrap a company using income-taxed money, whereas a business person can engage in creative accounting whereby an existing business can invest in a new business practically tax free. If your average income tax is 35%, you're paying a ~50% premium to acquire the same assets as someone who rolls over money from business to business. This includes real estate and everything else.
- llamaimperative 2y ago
  Plenty of people who most Americans would consider "rich" pay income tax. Edit: Uh oh, downvoted by people who apparently think either people who earn $300k - $1MM+ aren't "rich" or that they don't pay income taxes. Lol.
  - dangus 2y ago
    They literally aren’t rich. And they pay a lot of income taxes. The actual rich people don’t pay as high of a tax rate, which is the problem. Let’s say you make $1 million per year and your net worth is $20 million. Elon Musk spending $1 million dollars is equivalent to you spending $50.80. That would be equivalent to the median earner ($42,000) spending 10 cents. Someone who earns $1 million a year would have to be alive for 393,000 years to earn Elon Musk’s net worth as salary. The difference between the 1% and the 0.5% is massive. The difference between the 0.5% and the 0.1% is even bigger. Don’t forget that a billionaire is a millionaire 1000 times over, and the richest billionaires are hundreds of billionaires.
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      > Let’s say you make $1 million per year and your net worth is $20 million. Then you are unambiguously extremely rich. Yes there are people orders of magnitude richer, but yes you are orders of magnitude richer than the median American. Money is no longer a daily consideration to live a 100% comfortable and healthy (to the extent money can pay for it) life. I am well aware of how much more obscenely wealthy the ultrawealthy are. That doesn’t make a $20MM net worth or $1MM/yr household middle class.
      - dangus 2y ago
        It makes them effectively have similar societal power as the middle class. They don’t have anywhere near enough money to wield institutional power and at most exert control on the lives of a handful of employees or tenants or whoever. They can’t get their names on institutional buildings. They could retire immediately and live on that net worth but their standard of living would be greatly impacted by doing so rather than continuing their income-generating activities. They could face major financial consequences by spending their money frivolously or losing it in a lawsuit. They have a low enough amount of money that they could gamble it away or lose it all in a bad business investment. I think that makes them much closer to the middle class than the truly wealthy who cannot lose their fortune even if they tried their hardest and have essentially no feasible way to have their standard of living lowered. For example, if Twitter shut down after Elon bought it, there would be no detectable difference to his lifestyle or buying power. There is no amount he could gamble at a casino where he would lose his fortune.
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  This is false. Rich people do pay income taxes. I consider anyone in the top 10% of america to be rich. Perhaps when you say rich you only mean billionaires? Which would be a hilariously narrow view. There are tens of thousands of people in the technology industry alone making 750K+ W2 income. that's rich to me. it's sad that HN is privy to propaganda and misinformation as well. ask anyone on the street if 500K income is rich, and they will say yes.
  - SiliconSplash 2y ago
    You can structure your income to be more tax efficient if you aren't a full time employee. Most people in the top 10% of wealth will be structuring their income in such a way to avoid as much tax as possible.
    - amazingamazing 2y ago
      The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K. Do you still believe most people can do this?
      - SiliconSplash 2y ago
        > The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K "*Only*" That is a lot of money for most people. How the other half live! > The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K Yes. I was doing it when I was earning less than that as a contractor in the UK. I can tell you how it generally works in the UK: * You set up a LTD company. * You pay yourself a minimum salary where you pay the bare minimum tax this is approximately £13000 the last time I checked. I think you can pay any other "directors" this as well, you basically make your significant other one. * Anything related to work becomes an expense e.g. parking tickets, mileage on your vehicle, laptop, computer software etc. So you don't pay this, the company does and thus you get a tax relief. * You pay yourself dividends from your LTD company. You pay yourself the bare minimum and leave as much as possible in the company. These were taxed at a far lower rate that the equivalent money if you worked perm. * You pay your pension via the company (this is tax free upto £60,000 IIRC). In the US how it is exactly done will be of course different as the taxes are structured differently but I know for a fact that people are doing similar in the US.
- maeln 2y ago
  Most rich people have very substantial income. It's just that they also have a lot of capital gain. As an example, most CEO have the biggest salary in the company, but also get other capital comp like stocks. There is ofc the loan loophole, but it doesn't mean that they don't get any other income, on which they are taxed on. It is just that, if you calculate their total package, compare to an average worker they pay significantly less taxes *proportionally* because a disproportionate amount of their "income" (some of which could hardly be called income but that is another subject) are in some form that are taxed less.
  - hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
    Rich people, including CEOs, are disproportionately paid with equity, so your point is pretty irrelevant. In 2022 Google's CEO made $2 million in salary and $218 million in stock awards.
    - amazingamazing 2y ago
      the equity sundar receives is taxed though as income so what is your point?
      - lossolo 2y ago
        No, it's not. You can take a loan against your stock and don't pay any taxes. Very common strategy. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, etc. all use this strategy to fund their lifestyles without selling stock.
        amazingamazing 2y ago
        first, yes, it is taxed as income, because it is income. so what - the loan has to be paid off, and the stock will inevitably be sold and taxed. there is no scheme to get away from paying taxes forever without dying, and that scheme (that one that involves dying), is the same one that benefits an average person w.r.t estate tax.
- SiliconSplash 2y ago
  They don't necessarily even pay that as they leverage existing assets and get loans.
- nickserv 2y ago
  Not sure what you mean by "rich" as it's a pretty vague term. If you mean top 0.5%, then sure, nearly all of their money typically does not come from regular income. If you mean top 10% then not really, most people in that bracket will be paying substantial income tax.
- dayjah 2y ago
  True of the very rich, but not the average rich. Consider how a SWE may be “rich” compared to a barista. That SWE is probably earning $200k/yr and is paying that income via W2.
- CalChris 2y ago
  Richer people don't even pay capital gains. They borrow money on their assets at a low interest rate.
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  This is why they want to cut capital gains taxes, and corporate taxes.
amazingamazing 2y ago
serious question - why do people believe the rich don't pay their fair share when the top 10% pay almost 3/4 of the income taxes. there's no way the top 10% receive 3/4 of the services, thus they're paying proportionally more, no? I am not saying this is good or bad, just trying to understand the rhetoric. it seems to me that rich people already pay plenty: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... only referring to income taxes here. not anything else.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  If you have multiple individuals sitting on top of $100+ billion, then they aren't paying plenty. Especially given the things that these individuals often do with their wealth.
  - amazingamazing 2y ago
    I'm not talking about specific rich individuals (e.g. top 1000). I'm talking about rich people in general, e.g. top 10% furthermore I am only talking about income tax, which is why I gave my context link.
    - lenerdenator 2y ago
      Then you're lowballing, perhaps as a rhetorical device.
      - amazingamazing 2y ago
        lowballing in what sense?
        myrmidon 2y ago
        When people are talking about "the rich not paying their fair share", it is typically about the income class that makes most of the income not from "working", but from "owning" (capital gains, profit from owned assets). This is exacerbated by the fact that those kinds of incomes are often taxed less (percentage-wise) than peoples salaries. The cutoff for this is probably more in the top 1 to 0.1% range. This notion is not something that only poor communists subscribe to (out of selfinterest/delusion), see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule
lenerdenator 2y ago
It's also insane. Outside of a few smaller, undeveloped nations, there aren't any countries that derive a substantial portion of their revenues via tariffs.
getnormality 2y ago
It's grimly fascinating that Biden lost so much support for inflation that was largely not under his control, so we replaced him with someone pushing policies that will raise inflation. Will we learn anything this time?
- spamizbad 2y ago
  I'm not a fan of Trump but I don't think you can let Biden off the hook on inflation either: Biden should've reversed course on tariffs, and not added his own, but didn't - likely a political calculus to avoid appearing "soft on China". Lifting tariffs would've immediately provided relief to both businesses and consumers. They do have a cooling effect on the economy though, so perhaps the other motivation for keeping them around was to prevent run-away inflation. While Tariffs can raise the cost of goods, they do not in-and-of-themselves create inflation unless you attempt to pump money back into the economy to repair the damage being caused by your tariffs.
  - jimkleiber 2y ago
    This whole fear of being "soft on" whichever perceived enemy is probably the cultural element driving us deeper into isolationism. We get into fights with a family member and don't want to look soft so we punch them back and then avoid them. We create more and more distance and relationships fall apart and then we get more lonely. So as it hurts personal relationships, it hurts political-economic relationships. We want to punish China with tariffs, and it's like punching our enemy in the face and hurting our own hand. And then they punch us back and hurt us and their own hand. Self- and other-defeating attempts at solutions. I'd say the weaker approach is to punch and/or run. The stronger approach takes the punches and still tries to work with the other person, recognizing how we help each other.
tlogan 2y ago
I completely agree that this is a problem, but what can we do? We’re so divided that we fail to see the real people pulling the strings behind the scenes. I recently posted about how tariffs are a sneaky way to introduce VAT—a system that ultimately hurts the middle class—and my post was heavily downvoted. Why? I assume it’s because certain media outlets push the narrative that VAT is good and tariffs are bad (I love how they say Norway has VAT so it has to be something great), while others claim the opposite. In the end, no matter which side wins the debate, it’s the middle class that pays the price.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  I wish someone would build some sort of PAC that pushes politicians to fix issues both sides agree are issues. Keep them on actually fixing solvable things, with agreeable solutions. The pendulum swing is tiring. Some of it feels like contrarianism for the sake of it.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
Replacing earned income tax with marginal land value tax would be the ideal. There is no reason to tax working.
littlestymaar 2y ago
If they wanted to make Communism happen in the US they wouldn't act differently. Widening the already enormous inequality gap that exists in the US, at a time when Luigi Mangione became a popular hero, isn't going to end well.
outside1234 2y ago
And mind you, they are simultaneously going to gut the IRS so they can file a mountain of paperwork, that at the end, says that magically they only owe $400, and we won't have enough IRS personnel to really challenge it.
hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
I'm trying to refrain from "evil" language, but I'm honestly interested in how anyone can defend some of these policies from a moral perspective. E.g. the purported House plan aims to make huge corporate tax cuts by essentially eliminating Medicaid. I would honestly like to hear someone who thinks that's good (and moral) policy and their rationale.
legohead 2y ago
That's how the US got most of its income until 1913, when federal tax income was introduced. But it doesn't work in a real market economy, for many reasons already stated. It doesn't just hurt our people but the world economy as a whole. Tariffs can be good, but you wont find politicians using them correctly. They can be used to protect newly growing businesses from foreign competition - but they are often used in the opposite, protecting large businesses.
tootie 2y ago
I have not seen anything resembling a revenue projection. I have not seen any projections on how much import substitution we can sustain. Trump has persistently insisted that exporters pay tariffs. He calls trade deficits subsidies. I have seen no indication or intimation that he actually understands anything about trade policy. This entire thread is more thorough debate than is happening in the White House.

This is why their plan to eliminate income tax and make up the difference with tariffs is just hilariously evil. It's literally shifting tax burden from rich to poor.

nicce 2y ago

Ooh. I never thought this from tariffs. Now it makes perfectly sense.

prometheus76 2y ago

Rich people don't pay income taxes. They pay capital gains taxes. They typically don't have income, or very little income compared to capital gains.

Salgat 2y ago
And the beauty is that long term capital gains is capped at 20%. That's a lower overall rate than what my family pays in taxes. The rich got it made.
- polski-g 2y ago
  The top 10% of America pay 75% of all taxes received -- the top 25% pay for 89%. https://www.ntu.org/library/doclib/2024/02/2021-who-pays-2-.pdf https://www.ntu.org/library/doclib/2024/02/2021-who-pays-2-....
  - mkipper 2y ago
    Conveniently, there's no mention of the 0.1% in there, and the historical data comparing the tax contribution of the top 1% to the total tax base doesn't include any information on income and wealth growth of the 1% over that same time period. Weird! But given that the organization who published that was founded by a Newsmax board member, I'm sure they're trying to paint a clear and unbiased picture of things.
  - Salgat 2y ago
    400 families own the same wealth as 160 million Americans, so they better be paying far more in taxes. In fact, given how much taxes eat into basic living expenses for the bottom 50%, the rich should be paying even more in taxes.
skyyler 2y ago
The fact that capital gains are differently taxed than worker income is further evidence that the game is stacked in favor of the rich.
- rgbrgb 2y ago
  I don't disagree with your broader point, but isn't the lower cap gains tax rate also incentive design to reward investment over pure consumption?
  - oooyay 2y ago
    Yes, but it very much matters why you're doing it. Someone who doesn't have enough money to functionally retire, even if they're wealthy, is doing it to get closer to a retirement number. "Rich" people as described here, that make a majority of their money on investment ROI, are playing an entirely different ball game with the same mechanics.
  - skizm 2y ago
    Specifically long term investment, which is why you only get the benefit of lower taxes after a year.
    - SR2Z 2y ago
      And we need to reward this behavior SO MUCH that we'll drop more than half of the taxes? People will invest as long as the taxes aren't worse than income taxes. We don't need this much "encouragement" because stock market returns are high enough already.
  - roncesvalles 2y ago
    I don't see how that follows. A salaried person has to bootstrap a company using income-taxed money, whereas a business person can engage in creative accounting whereby an existing business can invest in a new business practically tax free. If your average income tax is 35%, you're paying a ~50% premium to acquire the same assets as someone who rolls over money from business to business. This includes real estate and everything else.
llamaimperative 2y ago
Plenty of people who most Americans would consider "rich" pay income tax. Edit: Uh oh, downvoted by people who apparently think either people who earn $300k - $1MM+ aren't "rich" or that they don't pay income taxes. Lol.
- dangus 2y ago
  They literally aren’t rich. And they pay a lot of income taxes. The actual rich people don’t pay as high of a tax rate, which is the problem. Let’s say you make $1 million per year and your net worth is $20 million. Elon Musk spending $1 million dollars is equivalent to you spending $50.80. That would be equivalent to the median earner ($42,000) spending 10 cents. Someone who earns $1 million a year would have to be alive for 393,000 years to earn Elon Musk’s net worth as salary. The difference between the 1% and the 0.5% is massive. The difference between the 0.5% and the 0.1% is even bigger. Don’t forget that a billionaire is a millionaire 1000 times over, and the richest billionaires are hundreds of billionaires.
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    > Let’s say you make $1 million per year and your net worth is $20 million. Then you are unambiguously extremely rich. Yes there are people orders of magnitude richer, but yes you are orders of magnitude richer than the median American. Money is no longer a daily consideration to live a 100% comfortable and healthy (to the extent money can pay for it) life. I am well aware of how much more obscenely wealthy the ultrawealthy are. That doesn’t make a $20MM net worth or $1MM/yr household middle class.
    - dangus 2y ago
      It makes them effectively have similar societal power as the middle class. They don’t have anywhere near enough money to wield institutional power and at most exert control on the lives of a handful of employees or tenants or whoever. They can’t get their names on institutional buildings. They could retire immediately and live on that net worth but their standard of living would be greatly impacted by doing so rather than continuing their income-generating activities. They could face major financial consequences by spending their money frivolously or losing it in a lawsuit. They have a low enough amount of money that they could gamble it away or lose it all in a bad business investment. I think that makes them much closer to the middle class than the truly wealthy who cannot lose their fortune even if they tried their hardest and have essentially no feasible way to have their standard of living lowered. For example, if Twitter shut down after Elon bought it, there would be no detectable difference to his lifestyle or buying power. There is no amount he could gamble at a casino where he would lose his fortune.
amazingamazing 2y ago
This is false. Rich people do pay income taxes. I consider anyone in the top 10% of america to be rich. Perhaps when you say rich you only mean billionaires? Which would be a hilariously narrow view. There are tens of thousands of people in the technology industry alone making 750K+ W2 income. that's rich to me. it's sad that HN is privy to propaganda and misinformation as well. ask anyone on the street if 500K income is rich, and they will say yes.
- SiliconSplash 2y ago
  You can structure your income to be more tax efficient if you aren't a full time employee. Most people in the top 10% of wealth will be structuring their income in such a way to avoid as much tax as possible.
  - amazingamazing 2y ago
    The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K. Do you still believe most people can do this?
    - SiliconSplash 2y ago
      > The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K "*Only*" That is a lot of money for most people. How the other half live! > The threshold to enter top 10% is only 180K Yes. I was doing it when I was earning less than that as a contractor in the UK. I can tell you how it generally works in the UK: * You set up a LTD company. * You pay yourself a minimum salary where you pay the bare minimum tax this is approximately £13000 the last time I checked. I think you can pay any other "directors" this as well, you basically make your significant other one. * Anything related to work becomes an expense e.g. parking tickets, mileage on your vehicle, laptop, computer software etc. So you don't pay this, the company does and thus you get a tax relief. * You pay yourself dividends from your LTD company. You pay yourself the bare minimum and leave as much as possible in the company. These were taxed at a far lower rate that the equivalent money if you worked perm. * You pay your pension via the company (this is tax free upto £60,000 IIRC). In the US how it is exactly done will be of course different as the taxes are structured differently but I know for a fact that people are doing similar in the US.
maeln 2y ago
Most rich people have very substantial income. It's just that they also have a lot of capital gain. As an example, most CEO have the biggest salary in the company, but also get other capital comp like stocks. There is ofc the loan loophole, but it doesn't mean that they don't get any other income, on which they are taxed on. It is just that, if you calculate their total package, compare to an average worker they pay significantly less taxes *proportionally* because a disproportionate amount of their "income" (some of which could hardly be called income but that is another subject) are in some form that are taxed less.
- hn_throwaway_99 2y ago
  Rich people, including CEOs, are disproportionately paid with equity, so your point is pretty irrelevant. In 2022 Google's CEO made $2 million in salary and $218 million in stock awards.
  - amazingamazing 2y ago
    the equity sundar receives is taxed though as income so what is your point?
    - lossolo 2y ago
      No, it's not. You can take a loan against your stock and don't pay any taxes. Very common strategy. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, etc. all use this strategy to fund their lifestyles without selling stock.
      - amazingamazing 2y ago
        first, yes, it is taxed as income, because it is income. so what - the loan has to be paid off, and the stock will inevitably be sold and taxed. there is no scheme to get away from paying taxes forever without dying, and that scheme (that one that involves dying), is the same one that benefits an average person w.r.t estate tax.
SiliconSplash 2y ago
They don't necessarily even pay that as they leverage existing assets and get loans.
nickserv 2y ago
Not sure what you mean by "rich" as it's a pretty vague term. If you mean top 0.5%, then sure, nearly all of their money typically does not come from regular income. If you mean top 10% then not really, most people in that bracket will be paying substantial income tax.
dayjah 2y ago
True of the very rich, but not the average rich. Consider how a SWE may be “rich” compared to a barista. That SWE is probably earning $200k/yr and is paying that income via W2.
CalChris 2y ago
Richer people don't even pay capital gains. They borrow money on their assets at a low interest rate.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
This is why they want to cut capital gains taxes, and corporate taxes.

amazingamazing 2y ago

serious question - why do people believe the rich don't pay their fair share when the top 10% pay almost 3/4 of the income taxes. there's no way the top 10% receive 3/4 of the services, thus they're paying proportionally more, no? I am not saying this is good or bad, just trying to understand the rhetoric. it seems to me that rich people already pay plenty: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-income-tax-data-2025/ https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/latest-federal-in... only referring to income taxes here. not anything else.

lenerdenator 2y ago
If you have multiple individuals sitting on top of $100+ billion, then they aren't paying plenty. Especially given the things that these individuals often do with their wealth.
- amazingamazing 2y ago
  I'm not talking about specific rich individuals (e.g. top 1000). I'm talking about rich people in general, e.g. top 10% furthermore I am only talking about income tax, which is why I gave my context link.
  - lenerdenator 2y ago
    Then you're lowballing, perhaps as a rhetorical device.
    - amazingamazing 2y ago
      lowballing in what sense?
      - myrmidon 2y ago
        When people are talking about "the rich not paying their fair share", it is typically about the income class that makes most of the income not from "working", but from "owning" (capital gains, profit from owned assets). This is exacerbated by the fact that those kinds of incomes are often taxed less (percentage-wise) than peoples salaries. The cutoff for this is probably more in the top 1 to 0.1% range. This notion is not something that only poor communists subscribe to (out of selfinterest/delusion), see e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffett_Rule

lenerdenator 2y ago

It's also insane. Outside of a few smaller, undeveloped nations, there aren't any countries that derive a substantial portion of their revenues via tariffs.

getnormality 2y ago

It's grimly fascinating that Biden lost so much support for inflation that was largely not under his control, so we replaced him with someone pushing policies that will raise inflation. Will we learn anything this time?

spamizbad 2y ago
I'm not a fan of Trump but I don't think you can let Biden off the hook on inflation either: Biden should've reversed course on tariffs, and not added his own, but didn't - likely a political calculus to avoid appearing "soft on China". Lifting tariffs would've immediately provided relief to both businesses and consumers. They do have a cooling effect on the economy though, so perhaps the other motivation for keeping them around was to prevent run-away inflation. While Tariffs can raise the cost of goods, they do not in-and-of-themselves create inflation unless you attempt to pump money back into the economy to repair the damage being caused by your tariffs.
- jimkleiber 2y ago
  This whole fear of being "soft on" whichever perceived enemy is probably the cultural element driving us deeper into isolationism. We get into fights with a family member and don't want to look soft so we punch them back and then avoid them. We create more and more distance and relationships fall apart and then we get more lonely. So as it hurts personal relationships, it hurts political-economic relationships. We want to punish China with tariffs, and it's like punching our enemy in the face and hurting our own hand. And then they punch us back and hurt us and their own hand. Self- and other-defeating attempts at solutions. I'd say the weaker approach is to punch and/or run. The stronger approach takes the punches and still tries to work with the other person, recognizing how we help each other.

tlogan 2y ago

I completely agree that this is a problem, but what can we do? We’re so divided that we fail to see the real people pulling the strings behind the scenes. I recently posted about how tariffs are a sneaky way to introduce VAT—a system that ultimately hurts the middle class—and my post was heavily downvoted. Why? I assume it’s because certain media outlets push the narrative that VAT is good and tariffs are bad (I love how they say Norway has VAT so it has to be something great), while others claim the opposite. In the end, no matter which side wins the debate, it’s the middle class that pays the price.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
I wish someone would build some sort of PAC that pushes politicians to fix issues both sides agree are issues. Keep them on actually fixing solvable things, with agreeable solutions. The pendulum swing is tiring. Some of it feels like contrarianism for the sake of it.

lotsofpulp 2y ago

Replacing earned income tax with marginal land value tax would be the ideal. There is no reason to tax working.

littlestymaar 2y ago

If they wanted to make Communism happen in the US they wouldn't act differently. Widening the already enormous inequality gap that exists in the US, at a time when Luigi Mangione became a popular hero, isn't going to end well.

outside1234 2y ago

And mind you, they are simultaneously going to gut the IRS so they can file a mountain of paperwork, that at the end, says that magically they only owe $400, and we won't have enough IRS personnel to really challenge it.

hn_throwaway_99 2y ago

I'm trying to refrain from "evil" language, but I'm honestly interested in how anyone can defend some of these policies from a moral perspective. E.g. the purported House plan aims to make huge corporate tax cuts by essentially eliminating Medicaid. I would honestly like to hear someone who thinks that's good (and moral) policy and their rationale.

legohead 2y ago

That's how the US got most of its income until 1913, when federal tax income was introduced. But it doesn't work in a real market economy, for many reasons already stated. It doesn't just hurt our people but the world economy as a whole. Tariffs can be good, but you wont find politicians using them correctly. They can be used to protect newly growing businesses from foreign competition - but they are often used in the opposite, protecting large businesses.

tootie 2y ago

I have not seen anything resembling a revenue projection. I have not seen any projections on how much import substitution we can sustain. Trump has persistently insisted that exporters pay tariffs. He calls trade deficits subsidies. I have seen no indication or intimation that he actually understands anything about trade policy. This entire thread is more thorough debate than is happening in the White House.