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Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

lse.ac.uk

101–110 of 210 posts

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#101
post #42

This is basically what happened in Orbán's 16 years in Hungary. He gave indirect tax cuts for the rich, or just generally everyone who is not living pay check to pay check (by hungarian standards it means you are rich). So for example installing solar panels came with a tax writeoff but the whole thing was setup that it only benefit who already have had enough money to install a full brand new solar panel system. So…

Ehh, I don't know if those examples really apply, even if they effectively have a similar outcome. Incentives for environmentally friendly tech are more about helping those industries get off the ground against entrenched incumbents that are harmful to everyone. The benefit of less exhaust in the air is immediately good for everyone.

Although I'm sure government and corporate greed was able to exploit those policies as much as it could.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Supply-side economics" is a technocratic rebranding of trickle-down economics, adding just enough nuance to force the draw rhetorically while advocating policy that is completely indefensible to anyone who has enough time to properly examine the nuance.

Again, "trickle-down economics" was created by Will Rogers. He was never a policy maker, just a comedian trying to tell funny stories. Nor did he accidentally create a policy in a 10 minutes of rambling standup routine. If you listen to the routine you will realize that he was talking about things that had already happened. He wasn't some kind of hidden political visionary. We can accept that "supply-side economics"…

No, no such thing, only a hundred spectacularly regressive tax, trade, and benefit decisions sold on promises of growth that would supposedly benefit everyone and then didn't. Totally different!

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#103
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Germany it's 90k EUR, in Poland it's a mere 30k EUR gross on employment contract. No it's not a coincidence, the government knows what they're doing. In short, they are not friends with those on employment contract in private sector. In UK though the salaries are fixed at 25k GBP annually until forever, they simply like this number.

Just for context: for an average single paying tax class 1 that’s 4.4k net per month, while the median working single earned 2.2k net in 2025. Source: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Einkom...

Meantime the average German billionaire, which Germany has the highest number in Europe: [awkward look monkey puppet meme]

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#104
post #92
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one believes in trickle-down economics. As GP said, it's a pejorative straw man invented by its opponents .

[flagged]

Can I extend an olive branch anyways? I really believe in good faith, civil conversation, and I'd love the opportunity to make amends here.

You've said you won't respond further, but seeing your passion, I think it would be great if we could have a civil conversation. I genuinely believe that trickle-down and supply-side economics are meaningfully different things, and I think there would be much to gain from hearing your perspective in more detail.

My thesis boils down to the fact that supply-side economics (say for example, something like small business tax credits) often gets conflated with trickle-down economics undeservedly. Trickle-down policy--take money from the poor and give it to the rich indiscriminately--is an objectively horrible idea, but I would say also that nobody is seriously arguing for that sort of thing.

(Also, I'm have no idea what "GP" stands for.)

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#105
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are basically saying you can tell us, but you won't. If you are not going to tell us anything, why are you teasing us as if you will? Holding back discussion points is not a way to advance a discussion

You are right. I should be more forthright; I was answering elsewhere. Here's another comment I made that's relevant. """ I think supply-side economics deserves more nuance than simply thinking we need to make the tax rate arbitrarily low. The Laffer curve isn't the only thing you should look at, since where you tax can be just as important as how much you tax. Take corporate taxes for example. If one were to advocat…

> You'll see this often in the social democracies of Scandinavia, like Sweden or Denmark. These are countries with strong welfare states, and yet, the corporate tax rates are often lower than the U.S., even if you look at the most red states.

This is only true if you look at the standard tax rate. The effective tax rate of a lot of US corporations is appreciably lower.

It works in places like Scandinavia because they don't give corporations ways to lower their tax burden

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#106

The paper talks about economic growth, income distribution and unemployment. I'm mostly interested in economic growth, so looked at what the paper claimed about that. It found that major, sudden reductions in taxes on the rich did not have any statistically significant effect on the trajectory of economic growth over the following five years. But: - Their sample is small. They only looked at relatively large, discret…

The question I have is that at some point X taxes are collected and the economy is growing at Y, then the policies change and now X-5 taxes are collected and the economy grows at Y. What was the function of the 5 under the first regime?

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By "not real" I mean it's not a real policy. They are different in that one is a policy and the other is not.

how about this - Trickle Down is the implementation of Supply Side theory

Yeah I think that's also very inaccurate. Supply-side theory is not about indiscriminately taking money from the poor and giving it to the rich.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, "trickle-down economics" was created by Will Rogers. He was never a policy maker, just a comedian trying to tell funny stories. Nor did he accidentally create a policy in a 10 minutes of rambling standup routine. If you listen to the routine you will realize that he was talking about things that had already happened. He wasn't some kind of hidden political visionary. We can accept that "supply-side economics"…

No, no such thing, only a hundred spectacularly regressive tax, trade, and benefit decisions sold on promises of growth that would supposedly benefit everyone and then didn't. Totally different!

Since you clearly haven't finished listening to the full joke yet, I'll reveal the punchline: What you describe is what Rogers called "trickle up".

"Trickle-up economics" has never been formally used to refer to a policy either, but at least if you called it that we would understand what you are trying to say. "Trickle-down economics" doesn't even make sense beyond a device used to setup a joke. It is bizarre that you keep going there.

Re: Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023)

#110
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Can I extend an olive branch anyways? I really believe in good faith, civil conversation, and I'd love the opportunity to make amends here. You've said you won't respond further, but seeing your passion, I think it would be great if we could have a civil conversation. I genuinely believe that trickle-down and supply-side economics are meaningfully different things, and I think there would be much to gain from hearing…

Not the OP. But posting from a low-use, 10 month old alt handle (?) doesn't really gesture good faith.
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