Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

news.gallup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 267 posts

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#101

Post by tick_tock_tick »

skh wrote: post #16

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced…

People contently use this false dichotomy around military spending to avoid acknowledging that we spend just as much or more on health care and other social services per capita as the other western nations. How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient!

We can have both the most advanced military and a solid social system if we can figure out how to get our social spending return on investment close to other western nation. Universal Health care would be a big step. Other stuff to look at is collapsing the number of social services agencies down to a more reasonable numbers, not removing the benefits. Actually auditing our system to figure out what is and what is not working rather then allocating money based on political appearances.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#102

Post by howard941 »

cowpig wrote: post #38
skh wrote: post #16

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced…

Somehow I doubt that most people are thinking of where they want to live in terms of "returns on taxation"

It's not clear where the emphasis on taxation is coming from. It's not in the underlying article and the polling shows only two wealth categories.

Based on the data it's age that determines whether or not to leave the US, which makes sense since there'd be shallower roots to leave behind.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#104

Post by arbol »

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

How can the US tax foreign income? Presumably they would have no idea about your earnings abroad.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#105

Post by CydeWeys »

sgjohnson wrote: post #34
skh wrote: post #16

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced…

Israel’s warfare system is far more advanced than the US. Paid for by the US taxpayer of course.

Israel's Navy is a joke. They have nothing of any relevance except a handful of subs that might be capable of launching nuclear missiles. They have no destroyers, no cruisers, and most importantly, no aircraft carriers.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#106

Post by wyldfire »

jedmeyers wrote: post #30
wyldfire wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is not genuine. US has a legal immigration requiring much the same process as Canada. If you end up crossing into Canada outside of a port of entry, you can request asylum from the Canadian border patrol just like you can in the US.

Of course you can apply but does a random person living in the US has enough grounds to receive an asylum in Canada?

I'm torn. On one hand I shouldn't feed the trolls, OTOH it sounds like you genuinely believe that "random people" from Central America are equivalent to the US.

Many Central American countries, including El Salvador, do not have the rule of law that we have in the US. They're overrun by gangs [1]. It is a legitimate claim to asylum. "a random person in the US" does not have this same claim, so, no, they do not have enough grounds.

The United States of America has historically been a bastion of freedom. It's no BS -- we need to live up to the inscription on the Statue of Liberty: "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore."

My ancestors (now me and my descendants), likely your ancestors, benefited from legal immigration and didn't even have an asylum claim. The 19th and 20th centuries also saw the demonization of various European immigrant groups. Don't buy the hype, your fortune/misfortune is not impacted by immigration. Globalization has had a WAY bigger impact and was/is inevitable.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador#Gang_invo...

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#107

Post by netrap »

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

While it is true, isn't only after the first 100K USD or so that you have to pay taxes on??

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#108

Post by skh »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #101
skh wrote: post #16

Ultimately this indicates that people aren’t satisfied with the returns on taxation. I’m all for supporting a government that supports the people. From my perspective we don’t have this and haven’t had it for some time. Other developed nations have better infrastructure, better social support system, near free higher education, free at point of contact healthcare systems. What we get in the U.S. is the most advanced…

People contently use this false dichotomy around military spending to avoid acknowledging that we spend just as much or more on health care and other social services per capita as the other western nations. How we spend that money is just horribly inefficient! We can have both the most advanced military and a solid social system if we can figure out how to get our social spending return on investment close to other w…

There was no false dichotomy in what I wrote. Our return on taxation is a horrible healthcare system and an extremely effective military. I mentioned nothing about level of spending. I mentioned the returns on said spending. Of corse we could have a powerful military and a good healthcare system but we don’t. We have the former but not the latter.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#109

Post by RIMR »

whatshisface wrote: post #15

I see that people are assuming that the ones who want to leave do so because they feel the government is insufficiently liberal. The truth is, I have met some people who wish they could leave to go somewhere more conservative. I think that everyone would want to leave the US if somewhere out there was a utopia that exactly implemented their political and social views. The main thing that tamps down that desire is the…

Anecdotally, I am sure there are people who wish that the USA was more conservative, and who would leave if there were an appealing alternative.

But given that this spike in potential ex-pats corresponds with two years of unprecedented bad leadership by a largely Conservative/Traditionalist President - I find it hard to believe that this has anything to do with Conservatives finding America to be too left-leaning. If that were the case, such a spike would have been seen during the 8 years Obama was president, not after two years of Conservative domination of the American government.

Furthermore, pinning all of this on the economic theory of Liberalism is either oversimplification, or a complete misunderstanding of leftist ideologies. If anything, the left is becoming less liberal, and more socialist.

The real culture war going on right now appears to be between Capitalism vs. Socialist Policy & Traditionalism vs. Progressivism.

Re: Record Numbers of Americans Want to Leave the U.S

#110

Post by tcoff91 »

tristor wrote: post #57

I find it interesting how many comments here and on other sites that linked the same article talk about this being tied to concerns around how their tax dollars are spent. It seems many people are not aware that the US is one of only two countries which taxes it's citizens no matter where they reside. Leaving the US is not enough if you wish to avoid taxation, you must also acquire citizenship in another country, and…

I was under the impression that you only pay taxes to USA while living abroad if you move somewhere with lower income taxation than the USA, in which case you deduct the taxes paid to the other government from US taxes and pay the difference. This means most people don’t have to pay taxes to the USA while abroad because most countries tax you more than USA federal income tax rates.
Post reply on HN