Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan • Hacker News Board

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#61

Post by nonbel » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #45

nonbel wrote: post #35

I look at these "tax the super-rich" ideas like this: >"Added together, the total net worth for 2018's billionaires was US$9.1 trillion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires Meanwhile, the US federal government spends ~$4 trillion per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... So even confiscating all the wealth of the top couple thousand richest people in the world (not…

The US GDP was $17.5 trillion last year. I don't think you're looking at the right numbers. This isn't about seizing wealth, it's just an increase in the top bracket of income taxes. Anyway the climate plan is more about moving money around than just taking it and throwing it in a hole. Ideally, more wealth would be generated from people actually spending the money for useful things than would be made from the passiv…

>"The US GDP was $17.5 trillion last year. I don't think you're looking at the right numbers."

I don't follow. Why do you think GDP is the "right number" instead of tax revenue?

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#62

Post by berbec » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:30 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #54

pmdulaney wrote: post #44

What if we were to have an amendment to the Constitution such that income taxes for each income group would have to be approved by a plebiscite of those actually IN that income group? I wouldn't feel nearly so uneasy about taxing the ultra-rich at 70% if the majority of them were in favor of it.

Might as well just amend the Constitution to forbid raising income taxes.

Didn't work so well for California.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#63

Post by CWuestefeld » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

L_Rahman wrote: post #49

CWuestefeld wrote: post #24

Not a word about the logistics of making such a huge change in such a short amount of time? Surely AOC realizes that money isn't the only obstacle, but also replacing an enormous amount of infrastructure. When you think about how ubiquitous our usage of gasoline, home heating oil, CNG for heating and cooking, and on and on, it quickly becomes clear that while finances would be very difficult, that's dwarfed by the am…

I'll leave the tax plan aside to respond to this. As slow and creaky as the world is, when a government as powerful as the United States aggressively puts forth a vision for the world the systems of the world bend to make it work. Remember also that the vast majority of logistical challenges with climate change aren't developing new products, but handling coordination problems around deploying existing ones. Things t…

Remember also that the vast majority of logistical challenges with climate change aren't developing new products, but handling coordination problems around deploying existing ones.

Yes, that was exactly my point. There simply aren't enough people making electric cars, heat pumps, and all those other new products, to eliminate fossil fuel dependence by 2030, which was what AOC was advocating. Diverting enough resources would be disastrous to other industries, and then once we've made the huge investment to build all that, we suddenly don't need the capacity once we hit the goal. It's economic suicide.

Emergent properties of human behavior responding to incentives would take care of the rest.

You're outlining programs that would push us in the right direction, which is good. These are not things which will eliminate fossil fuel dependence by 2030, which is what AOC was shooting for, and which I'm criticizing.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#64

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #42

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #20

She cites Lincoln and FDR as evidence that radical ideas can be good ones. But "there have been radical ideas that have been good" does not imply " this radical idea is a good one". Her idea may in fact be good, but on this point, her logic does not work. As for the idea itself: IIRC, there seem to be significant second-order effects that keep the federal government's income at 18-22% of GDP, no matter what the tax r…

> She cites Lincoln and FDR as evidence that radical ideas can be good ones. But "there have been radical ideas that have been good" does not imply "this radical idea is a good one". But it does rebut the common line of argument that it is preemptively deployed against, which is “Radical ideas should be rejected as bad merely because they are radical.” > As for the idea itself: IIRC, there seem to be significant seco…

Your first part is fair, and your second part has actual data. I'm not sure why you're being downvoted.

There might be some kind of gaussian distribution on good ideas, though. The more radical an idea, the lower probability that it's correct. It's still not zero, and the idea should be judged on the merits. But the further out the idea is, the more radical it is, it seems reasonable to say that the level of skepticism should go up.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#65

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:33 PM UTC

pmdulaney wrote: post #58

dragonwriter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What if we were to have an amendment to the Constitution such that income taxes for each income group would have to be approved by a plebiscite of those actually IN that income group? Similarly, we should also require that regulations on industry be approved by the regulated industry, and that criminal punishments be ratified by those who are guilty of the specific crime.

Well, I think if we can impose 70% taxes on the ultra-rich, perhaps we should pass a law that Asians have to pay 50% more than other groups; I believe we still can outvote them.

That would be a clever slippery slope, but for Bolling v. Sharpe.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#66

Post by tdb7893 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

weberc2 wrote: post #15

I applaud ambitious efforts and I'm open to raising taxes for the very rich (albeit easy for me to say down here in the middle class), but AOC doesn't strike be as competent in the slightest (although as her supporters are so fond of rationalizing, she's not the least competent public official). She has charisma, which is an important leadership quality, but not much else as far as I can tell. Certainly not the perso…

The reason I like her is that she is passionate for a lot of the values I am pasaionate for. It's like with an engineer, you get the right person then you can always train them on the job if they need to learn things. I was very naive when I started as an engineer and everything turned out okay, it's not like she is the president or even a senator.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#67

Post by AnimalMuppet » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:34 PM UTC

bryanlarsen wrote: post #37

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it would be more useful to talk about ideas that have an actual chance of being enacted.

She's just reframing the debate. Once people realize how much support there is for a 70% tax bracket at the top, they'll be happy if it's "only" 50%.

Hmm. When you put it that way, I seem to recall a certain President Clinton doing something similar, and he was a pretty shrewd politician. Even if you don't scare the top earners into going along, you at least challenge the default of leaving things as they are, and you challenge it in the direction you (the politician) want to go.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#68

Post by LyndsySimon » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

lghh wrote: post #56

zozbot123 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Competent politicians aren't ... they surround themselves with subject matter experts. ¿Por qué no los dos? Is Ocasio-Cortez surrounding herself with subject-matter experts?

She's been in Congress for a whole 4 days. I'm sure by the time any legislation was starting to be written there will be subject matter experts in the room.

I have zero doubt that legislation for this session is pretty much already complete. Sure, there'll be things that come up during the session, but legislators already have their priorities set going in, and it'd be silly not to have the work already done and have the bills ready to go.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#69

Post by sp332 » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:36 PM UTC

nonbel wrote: post #61

sp332 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US GDP was $17.5 trillion last year. I don't think you're looking at the right numbers. This isn't about seizing wealth, it's just an increase in the top bracket of income taxes. Anyway the climate plan is more about moving money around than just taking it and throwing it in a hole. Ideally, more wealth would be generated from people actually spending the money for useful things than would be made from the passiv…

> "The US GDP was $17.5 trillion last year. I don't think you're looking at the right numbers." I don't follow. Why do you think GDP is the "right number" instead of tax revenue?

You didn't mention tax revenue in your comment either. My point was you need to look at capital gains and business taxes to get an idea of how much money there is available. Wealth is not relevant and personal income is not the whole picture.

Re: Ocasio-Cortez Says 70% Ultra-Rich Tax Could Pay for Climate Plan

#70

Post by geezerjay » Fri, Jan 04, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

L_Rahman wrote: post #53

nonbel wrote: post #35

I look at these "tax the super-rich" ideas like this: >"Added together, the total net worth for 2018's billionaires was US$9.1 trillion" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World%27s_Billionaires Meanwhile, the US federal government spends ~$4 trillion per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/... So even confiscating all the wealth of the top couple thousand richest people in the world (not…

Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people. If this seems radical, notice that this is already part of the American social contract. We already tax people to provide services and invest in long term projects. All this does is change the rates and the allocation direction.

> Taxing the rich isn't about generating revenue to make something. It's a reallocation mechanism for dollars that already exist in the economy to things that we want as a body of people.

That simplistic logic fails to account for the fact that pursuing income is an incentive to allocate resources to productive investments that are self-sufficient and pay off tons of taxes directly and indirextly, such as by paying salaries and generating demand.

Once you start to impose communist "reallocation mechanisms", not only are you eliminating incentives for productive investments as they effectively cease to be productive due to state intervention and actually create incentives to move production and industrial capabilities out of the country.

In short, you're advocating that the goose that lays golden eggs should be slautered to get to someone else's eggs.