I don't know if it's true or not, but I've heard the claim that even pushing up tax rates to Eisenhower-era levels (without deductions) would still not solve the problem fully.
Instead, we simply have a demographics issue: Too many older folks with unpayable entitlements and not enough younger workers to pay for the bill.
A reasonable proposal if Baby Boomers wouldn’t continue to subjugate future generations to crippling tax rates due to irresponsible financial policy decisions today.
The US has trillions (!!!) of dollars in liabilities that will need to be paid and we're still inacting tax cuts “because taxes are too high”.
2. Remove ceiling on payroll. Or call it a tax as well.
3. Slightly lower the floor for estate tax and close loopholes (like buying an insurance to inherit...) and slightly increase estate tax rates (I think 60% estate tax of the estate value over a limit of about $5M is fair).
4. Higher Medicare and social security tax rates to pay for Medicare for all.
I hate how people treat this as an unsolvable problem: the solution is obvious: increase taxes and cut expenses where we can. It isn’t that hard.
A lot of solutions for budget shortfalls seem to be focused on increasing burdens and reducing services for the lower classes. Maybe some of these shortfalls could be made up for by bringing the tax rates on the wealthy and corporations back up to pre-Reagan era levels, and also recouping some of the trillions in tax avoidance money hiding in offshore shelters?
This seems more preferable to me than nickle and diming the elderly.
Increasing the tax rate isn't what matters; the structure needs reform. For example getting rid of income tax and replacing it with revenue taxes, which are more difficult to circumvent.
The problem is that taxes are already fairly high. Throwing more money at the problem is not going to fix these issues. Bad administration is bad administration no matter how much money you burn.
I don't get it; why would it be _more_ of a problem than with current tax & benefits systems? Politicians can already make the "increase $benefit"/"decrease $tax" their #1 policy.
But, you're right in that just having more taxes won't fix things. There's serious issues in our governments, local state and federal, around actual costs and mismanagement of projects.
It feels weird to hold the opinion that at the same time we need more pro-union and pro-workers rights movements, and at the same time we need to take a lot of unions and what-not to task. ("why do i need to pay $10k for this light to be turned on?")
Instead, we simply have a demographics issue: Too many older folks with unpayable entitlements and not enough younger workers to pay for the bill.
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