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America will come to regret its war on taxes
- Bender 7mo ago[flagged]
- NewJazz 7mo agoLol what majority do you represent there, Bender?
- nobodyandproud 7mo agoYou don’t speak for the majority.
- Bender 7mo ago[flagged]
- BobAliceInATree 7mo agoYour not speaking on behalf of the majority if Americans.
- onemoresoop 7mo agoHe’s a self appointed representative of the majority. I guess he doesn’t care about democracy at all and probably views empathy as a defect or something…
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- rootusrootus 7mo agoAnd not saying anything interesting, in any case. It's easy to say "cut more, tax less." Zero effort. Let's see some thought behind it -- what are we going to cut, and why? What are we going to fund, and why? I feel like a lot of people don't really understand where the money 1) comes from, and 2) gets spent. Balancing the USG budget is a very, very big task.
- colechristensen 7mo agoYou're speaking on behalf of a minority of nutjobs who don't want to pay any taxes at all and wrap that in whatever logic suits them at the moment... bringing up the American Revolution and world wars in response to your desire to have more money and imagining that you'd be wealthier if you didn't have to pay taxes instead of everything being more expensive and everybody being worse off.
- dehsge 7mo agoThere’s a bit of a double edged sword here. Removal of taxes leads to more coupled private/government relationships. Where external interests fund politicians to protect their own monopolistic interests. That money needs to come from somewhere. Wealthy people don’t want to pay taxes. But they sure do like to pay money to members of the government to further their own interests. Remember it was about taxation without representation. Wealthy people pay a lobbying ‘tax’ and get representation. In this way they are just paying a tax in a different way, where they get benefits and you get very little to nothing.
- roamerz 7mo agoI couldn't read the article but at least agree with the title. Taxes should be 1:1 linked with spending. The xx trillion dollar deficit is IMHO unfixable without substantial, painful changes.
- umvi 7mo agoIt's not fixable with taxes alone though; the government also has to spend less than it brings in by cutting programs and budgets
- ChicagoDave 7mo agoThis is the lie. Our economy generates 27 trillion gdp. We can afford everything. We choose not to.
- lokar 7mo agoNot if you believe the (obviously wrong) laffer curve zealots
- shimman 7mo agoYeah, it's always funny to see how MMT is a perfectly acceptable way to create tax cuts and enable corporate welfare but if you suddenly want universal medicare or childcare suddenly we care about budgets or MMT is suddenly impractical.
- ericmay 7mo agoIt's more likely both are true. We can afford to do more for the people, but at the same time we are over-spending. Streamlining some of these functions would be nice. One area we are vastly over-spending is highway and roadway construction, for example. Even if we can afford it, we shouldn't pay for it. There are other more politically hot topics here and both general sides of the debate have merit, but we should try to not be dogmatic about it and instead think in systems terms and long-term outcomes. When I see a city or state spending $400,000/each on units for housing homeless people, well, that's obviously a misuse of funds. That's not sustainable. We shouldn't do it even if we can afford it. When we spend $50 billion in a week of the Iran war (which I support but just as an example), well, that $50 billion could have paid off a lot of mortgages - so maybe we should or could do that instead.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- andai 7mo ago[flagged]
- anubistheta 7mo agoAgreed. It's not conducive to discourse.
- throwanem 7mo agoOh, for goodness' sake. There are other websites. And his Randite goldbug nonsense is, quite frankly, overrepresented in American political discourse already.
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- Aboutplants 7mo agoI still think the American people want the government to pay their bills. If a candidate ran on an actual “Balanced Budget” and campaigned on it, boomers would eat it up!
- lokar 7mo agoI don't think that would stay true as soon as voters were faced with a detailed explanation of what a balanced budget (achieved by tax cuts alone) would look like. People say they don't like government. They say most of the spending is wasted. But when you point out specific spending programs (and what they actually do), they like them.
- bandofthehawk 7mo agoRoss Perot comes to mind, but I think he wanted to balance the budget mostly be cutting spending.
- georgemcbay 7mo ago> I still think the American people want the government to pay their bills. Not a comment on you, as I don't know you, but in my life experience all of the conservative-minded people I've known who bought into and parroted variations of the "welfare queen" myth were always the first in line for corporate welfare like subsidies, PPP/EIDL loans, and ZIRP benefits. And actual American people I know who are not part of the top 10% work extremely hard and just want essential safety nets (of the type that nearly all other first-world countries manage to offer) so they don't have to worry about being homeless if they get an unexpected medical bill. So I've always seen the idea that the non-well-off are just looking for handouts to do nothing as pure projection of the well-off as to what their mindset would be if they were less fortunate in their life circumstances. Is there some small set of people who abuse the system (any system)? Yes, but I'm absolutely convinced a lot more people abuse the system at the high-end (for far greater overall cost) than at the low-end. And only people on one side of the scale are likely to ever face legal consequences for systemic abuse.
- lokar 7mo agoWhat is the primary role of the police? To protect life and property, right? Who owns most of the property they are protecting? The police are a welfare program for the wealthy.
- tim333 7mo agohttps://archive.ph/j5FI7 https://archive.ph/j5FI7
- davideg 7mo agoGift link: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/04/16/america-will-come-to-regret-its-war-on-taxes?giftId=ZGExZGEyNGQtZmEyMy00NTk5LTlkOTQtOTg4NDJiNTgxNGU1&utm_campaign=gifted_article https://www.economist.com/leaders/2026/04/16/america-will-co...
- erkanerol 7mo agoohh interesting. can wars be a topic on HN? wow. didn’t know.
- jeffbee 7mo agoWith Democrats like these...
- lokar 7mo agoI really want to see (good, competitive) candidates making the case for government, and taxes to support it. Most of what people value in public life is supported by taxes (in the sense it would be impossible without them). But the other side has been allowed to criticize taxes and government unfairly with little to no effective opposition. IMO, there is a strong case to be made that waste and corruption is quite low (as a %), and that almost all non-defense spending is spent well and has a positive impact on society, benefiting everyone. I see a growing narrative that successful people "earned" everything they have on their own. People think "I paid my way through university, no one gave me anything", obviously complete nonsense. "I built my business from nothing, with no help from the government", and so on.
- jeffbee 7mo agoUnfortunately the slopulist wing of the Democratic party now mostly favors magical tax-cut-and-programs electoral platforms. For example, all but two of the candidates for governor of California from the Democratic party have tax platforms similar or identical to those of the two Republicans in the race.
- Forgeties79 7mo ago“If we just do a slightly lighter version of exactly what our opponent does everyone will vote for us. Sure, it didn’t work in the past. Sure, most people don’t realize that the ACA was basically Republican policy. Sure, we will never get any credit if we are tough on the border. But this time it will definitely work.”
- ryandrake 7mo agoI long for an actual progressive Democrat party whose ambitions go beyond being the Light Beer version of Republicans.
- Forgeties79 7mo agoAgreed but it’s on us to show up more than just every 4 years in the general, which unfortunately I find most critics don’t do (not accusing you of this). “Don’t vote, can’t complain” is reductionist BUT if you don’t vote every chance you can then it really holds true. Participate, folks! That candidate you like that “has no chance”? Go volunteer for their campaign! Make it possible! Primaries and local elections are often won on the margins. 1-5% changes, which are entirely possible, can change the course of a nation. This isn’t hyperbole, especially in a such hyper partisan times as these. Hell, you never know when your efforts might lead a president 5-10 years later.
- sloroo 7mo agoTax the rich!
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- ChicagoDave 7mo agoThe New Deal effective tax rates on individuals and corporations plus subsidies for public college created the greatest middle class in history. It also barred banks from loaning Wall Street money for speculative and risky adventures. In 1980 Reagan began unraveling all of the pillars of that middle class success. 46 years later you can see the damage. Housing is unaffordable even for professional couples. Public colleges are gated to the upper classes. There is no middle class anymore.
- lokar 7mo agoThe non-college educated working class was greatly reduced (in size and wealth), but mostly by trade and automation. In its place we have a smaller white-collar (college educated) middle class.
- Noaidi 7mo ago> There is no middle class anymore. There is a middle class, but it is the worst place to be. The best two places to be are rich or poor. The middle class are all suckers, they are making the rich richer and are supporting the poor. (I am poor.)
- zeroonetwothree 7mo agoThe traditional economist/polisci view is that laws favor the middle class (the largest voting group) at the expense of the poor (who don’t benefit from most services) and rich (who pay most taxes). See “Director’s Law”
- zeroonetwothree 7mo agoThis is very silly. College attendance is at record highs, far above 1980.
- ChicagoDave 7mo agoAt what expense to college loan sufferers?
- fzeroracer 7mo agoAs much as I agree with the benefits of taxes, the Trump admin is showing one of the severe flaws with the American tax system. If the president can just freely choose how and where funds are allocated, then we don't have any actual representation for our taxes. Half the country can vote for a president whose policy is to illegally deny funding to states they don't like. I think the only solution realistically is going to be continued balkanization of the states as they take up more of the tax burden. Which is not going to lead to the outcomes said voters want. It's a shame since I think we really need a proper national healthcare program but if the president can just shut it down on a whim then there's no point.
- Galanwe 7mo agoWhat the US needs is constitution amendments and safeguards, so that what is happening does not happen again.
- atmavatar 7mo agoA big problem is that most of the checks and balances were designed around the assumption that each branch would be independent and adversarial with one another. Unfortunately, the existence of political parties cross-cutting the branches breaks this assumption, and they were created by the very founders who designed our government in the first place. We've been limping around entirely based on the honor system, and after significant capture of the media by a few wealthy individuals, the parties have dropped any pretense of acting for the benefit of the country.
- jaybrendansmith 7mo agoPaying taxes this year was more painful than it's ever been, because I am certain some of my money went to the billionaire grifters. If you think paying for good government is bad, try paying for horrible, corrupt government.
- cmxch 7mo ago[flagged]
- jandrewrogers 7mo agoThere isn't much juice to squeeze when you make one of the most progressive tax systems in the world even more progressive. Normalizing the idea that the middle class should pay very little tax makes it impossible to raise the necessary revenue as a matter of math.
- jeffbee 7mo agoExactly. The tax platform that we need the most is that dentists are not paying their share. Penny-ante local landlords are not paying their fair share. There is too much focus on the ultra rich, you can and should take all their stuff but it doesn't amount to a whole lot.
- lokar 7mo agoAIUI, most EU nations (the ones with the great social benefits the left says it wants for America), have a flatter tax burden, where the middle class pays a higher percentage of the total.
- etskinner 7mo agoMost people suggesting taxing the rich more aren't saying that the middle class should pay very little tax
- dionian 7mo agohow much of the revenue is necessary?
- jandrewrogers 7mo agoNo idea, my point was more that the math doesn't math regardless of if they are spending it well or poorly.
- rossjudson 7mo agoEverything you need to know about the US tax system in one convenient, incredibly disconcerting package: Ezra Klein https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5U5DNUfBc&si=4XEYfEl6lbWbTRcw https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=mX5U5DNUfBc&si=4XEYfEl6lbW...
- lokar 7mo agoCheck out: https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/jessica-riedl/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast-tag/jessica-riedl/ and other work / appearances by Riedl
- KetoManx64 7mo agoFantastic share. I've heard this explained in pieces from people a few times now but this just finally made it click for me. Thank you!
- nostrademons 7mo agoI think a lot of the reason for the war on taxes is the exorbitant privilege [1] of owning the world reserve currency. It lets America print as many dollars as it wants, and borrow in a currency it controls entirely. In a normal country this would result in severe inflation, but because America borrows and prints a currency that is necessary abroad to conduct international trade, it is able to "export" a large part of its inflation. In such a system, it is rational to cut taxes as much as possible and instead rely on borrowing and monetization of debt. It allows America to limit the load on its own citizens, who in turn enjoy "exorbitant privilege" in the colloquial rather than economic sense, and then have the costs spread amongst the billions of people who don't live here. Privatize the gains, socialize the losses. The flip side is that if the U.S. dollar ever loses its reserve currency status, that is literally the end of the United States. It will no longer have the ability to fund the government, which is fed by debt that is largely snapped up by foreigners who need a place to park the dollars that move abroad from the persistent trade deficits needed to sustain reserve currency status. It will also no longer have a citizenry or economy capable of doing anything other than moving capital (finance) and jobs (tech) around in the global economy, since in the current reserve currency economy, those are the only sectors that are profitable to go into. If it happens, expect basically a collapse of society and multi-sided civil war. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege
- davideg 7mo agoAh your comment finally makes me understand the premise of MMT[1], which seems to presuppose that the US will always have this special status. Makes the current administration's geopolitical recklessness even more terrifying. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory
- bigbadfeline 7mo ago> It lets America print as many dollars as it wants... its own citizens enjoy "exorbitant privilege" and have the costs spread amongst the billions of people who don't live here. This is a popular and tearful story of privilege but it's untrue today. In order for the "privilege" to exist, the foreign holdings of US debt must increase every year by amounts equal to the yearly US shortfalls... however, since around 2015, foreign holdings of US debt have been falling to flat. Nowadays, not only there isn't any "exorbitant" privilege, there isn't any privilege at all. The shortfalls are funded by the US population at large via internal debt and inflation. There's a slight uptick of foreign holdings this year due to instability but any public benefit from that is dwarfed by the losses caused by inflation and tariffs. The yearly data for foreign holdings of US debt are easily found online.
- Noaidi 7mo agowe need to tax (update: sorry, not wealth) income. 90% tax on all income over $100 million. That would mean anyone making $500 million would still be bringing in $40 million a year. If you need more than $40 million a year you are just greedy and want to be some kind of king. This would also mean the power of wealth would be neutralized.
- bryanlarsen 7mo ago> 90% tax on all income over $100 million. That's an income tax, not a wealth tax?
- Noaidi 7mo agoYes, sorry.
- zeroonetwothree 7mo agoThis would have barely any actual effect since the number of people with such high income is nearly zero. All it means is they would spend more on tax avoidance schemes which is wasteful.
- Epa095 7mo agoI guess you think this high marginal tax rate would hold for unrealized capital gains? Otherwise your conclusion don't really hold. Personally I prefer a wealth tax.
- sackfield 7mo agoSomething I have noticed about tax and spend advocates is they have shifted their messaging from "these taxes will pay for great services" to "these taxes will hurt the rich". It's telling that even they have lost faith in the ability for tax increases to provide meaningfully better services as an advertisement. I suppose no one, including myself, would seriously believe it. I am referencing only the American zeitgeist, I assume other countries might have better systems.
- ryandrake 7mo ago"The government shouldn't help people" is such a bizarrely popular American attitude, that so many people take as gospel. Therefore "The government can't help people" emerges as reality. It doesn't have to be this way, but we make it this way due to the majority's stubborn choices.
- MattGaiser 7mo agoYou look at a lot of places and between unions, procurement rules, or an obsession with certain classes of contractors, government capacity is badly hobbled from the start.
- davideg 7mo agoTaxes, if not quite the price of civilisation, do give citizens a reason to care about efficient and effective government. Severing that connection, and leaving large chunks of the electorate as mere recipients of state largesse, risks deepening America’s political dysfunction. We can't have nice things without paying for them. People who believe they are self-sufficient seem to ignore all the public infrastructure that keeps society and the economy moving (e.g. roads, emergency response/firefighters, schools, parks, libraries, etc). Imagine how much more entrepreneurial people could be if taking big big financial risks didn't have dire consequences like not having access to health care. No one loves paying taxes, especially when you don't agree with ways it's spent, but that means we need to fix politics and spend money better rather than denying that society needs financial contributions from almost everybody to function.
- casey2 7mo agoRoads and schools have been a net negative for American society. Massive amounts of public money are spent on making problems worse for no gain while simultaneously bloating spending further. (e.g. Smokey Bear, road build-out, bailouts). Citizens shouldn't have to care about the efficiency of the Government, it should be allowed to fail like any other company. The economy wants off Uncle Sam's lap.
- bryanlarsen 7mo ago> (e.g. roads, emergency response/firefighters, schools, parks, libraries, etc). The very rich don't use a lot of that. But what they do use a lot of is a reliance on educated employees, a wealthy customer base, a peaceful business environment, courts that enforce contracts, a stable currency, regulated and policed financial system, et cetera. All of the above is highly under-rated and acknowledged IMO.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- pclowes 7mo agoWe developed chronic overspending habits when interest rates were historically low. This made servicing the debt cheap and deficit spending reasonable. Why wouldn’t the government borrow at 0.14% (!!!) with GDP growth at say 3-4%. Now the math doesn’t work with a federal fund rate of 4-5%. And now as our debt rolls over it gets refinanced at the higher rates. Debt servicing is roughly 20% of the government budget and will soon be 25-35% in ~10 years assuming we don’t further accelerate deficit spending (which seems unlikely). US govt needs to cut dramatically to avoid this and the otherwise likely “solution” otherwise is inflation to make the debt effectively less expensive which also raises interest rates. We can’t tax our way out of this. Only 60% of US households earn enough to pay federal income tax. The top 1% of earners already pay roughly half of all tax revenue, top 10% is roughly 75%. Furthermore, there is profligate waste in government, inefficiency, no matter where the taxes came from even if we could materialize them. The government needs to shrink dramatically. This type of change is best done gradually but immediately to avoid later shocks (eg: Medicare suddenly disappears)
- cyanydeez 7mo ago>We developed chronic overspending habits when interest rates were historically low Weird, they were historically low because the money printers went brr. So the "We" you're talking about is both Republicans and Democrats, and not much else. So basically, the interest rate is meaningless, so everything that follows is probably just as meanginless. >The government needs to shrink Just because the government makes bad choices doesnt mean whatever fills the vacuum with make good choices.
- pclowes 7mo agoYes, both parties have objectively failed their mandate to look after the long-term interest of the American people and instead focused on short-term wasteful policies focused on their own party goals. Governments that consistently make bad choices eventually die one way or the other.
- bryanlarsen 7mo ago> The government needs to shrink dramatically Most (but not all) other developed countries have both a larger government and a smaller deficit per capita. A smaller government is not the only solution.
- haberman 7mo agoI would be open to paying higher taxes if I believed it would help address the deficit and debt (instead of just enabling more spending) and if I believed that the money was being well spent. Earlier in my adulthood, I would happily vote for almost any tax or levy, because I had faith that that money was turning directly into societal good. I have lost that faith. In the worst case, money seems to be grossly mismanaged (here is a local example from just last month: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fallout-from-bad-government-in-wa-there-wont-be-any/ https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/fallout-f...). In other cases, it is going to real nonprofits that are tasked with solving problems that never seem to get better, no matter how much money is spent. In yet other cases, the money goes to building transit (something else I was previously very bullish on), but that, once built, seems to be governed by principles of limitless permissiveness (an example from a few days ago: https://komonews.com/news/local/only-8-metro-fare-enforcement-citations-were-given-across-10-months-none-were-paid-bus-link-train-streetcar-traffic-rapidride-station-stop-commute-fare-jumping-hopping-legal-taxpayer-funding-fine-orca-seattle-king-county-fifa-world-cup-tourism https://komonews.com/news/local/only-8-metro-fare-enforcemen...) It's hard to feel invested in the programs that my taxes pay for when it doesn't feel like they reflect my values.
- casefields 7mo ago[dead]
- silexia 7mo agoI am also from Seattle, and the fraud and waste in the Washington state government is horrifying. The Attorney General and governor are threatening independent journalists with prosecution if they investigate it. And California, where I lived ten years, is even worse now.
- GoodJokes 7mo ago[dead]
- xnx 7mo agoWe might be unintentionally moving to a system where paying for government is done mostly through inflation.
- KetoManx64 7mo agoThis has already been the case since the creation of the Federal Reserve and moving away from the golf standard. The federal reserve gets to print money and the US government gets the first dibs on that, and the middle and lower class then get screwed shortly later by the inflation of the printing.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- jfengel 7mo agoThat's not the plan, but it's actually something economists have considered. They call it Modern Monetary Theory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Monetary_Theory Basically, printing money is just an IOU, so you might as well not bother with a separate "borrowing" step. If the government wants something, they issue an IOU, in the form of its own currency. On the flip side, the government still taxes, but it's just getting back its own IOUs. Instead of pretending it's depositing those IOUs back into a bank, they just tear them up and forget them. If your taxes match your spending, there's no inflation. The money supply remains constant. If you do spend more than you take in, you get inflation -- which is OK, if managed carefully. It encourages people to go spend their money, rather than just sitting on it. It's counterintuitive, but it's a lot more flexible than the way we handle it now. It lets the government spend its way past crises, especially during crashes when people hold on to their money.
- burnt-resistor 7mo agoIt started with Regan tax cuts and trickle down voodoo economics. High corporate taxes incentivized business investment that built the middle class. Another stupid move was legalizing stock buybacks that was previously considered stock manipulation. Doesn't even touch that the tax code is purposefully complicated to have zillions of loopholes so the very rich pay little to no taxes while everyone else funds an out-of-control military-industrial complex and socialism for the rich.
- xracy 7mo agoThe wildest thing to me about the 2010s, was that the war on taxes got framed as a "class war". And everyone didn't understand that to mean "a war on anyone who is not the top 1%" Even reading through this comment section, people mistrust that Taxes are useful to prevent undue power gathering in the hands of a small number of people. They also then help fund programs which can help the underclass. But the fear and dislike of taxes has clearly been weaponized by the ruling class to wage war on minimum wage workers and immigrants, in order to funnel as much wealth and power to the elites as possible. The war on taxes was never "America vs Taxes" it was "The Wealthy vs. The Poor" and the wealthy were able to leverage the media to trick the poor people into reacting in fear that "The gov't is coming for your money." By just parroting their own fears about the gov't coming for their money and saying "it could happen to you too." TBF, the Media really let/fueled this happening, likely because they were captured by corporate interests.
- silexia 7mo agoAmerica will regret social security, medicare, and welfare far more in the long run.
- vaadu 7mo agoThe income tax needs to be replaced with a consumption tax. The income tax is a terrible system for an internet based economy. To ensure that the consumption tax doesn't hit the poor too hard the govt can determine how much someone at the poverty line would pay, on average, in monthly taxes ie$200. The govt then deposits $200 monthly in to every US citizen's USG debit card.
- carefree-bob 7mo agoIs purchasing a house consumption?