Tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich (2023) • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by 1997cui » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

The current issue I feel with taxing is that, at least in USA, it mostly taxes based on Salary on Employees, but never tax on the capital or the actual wealth.

Tax the rich means: Increase W2 tax and property tax which, takes money away from me to feed lower middle class

Tax cut means: Reduce the estate tax and cooperate tax, keep the W2 tax flat, and cut the benefits that most critical to the bottom: Food stamps while keep other unnecessary programs unchanged: Discounted Toll for low income when driving in HOV lanes.

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

#142

Post by brightball » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:07 PM UTC

bena wrote: post #124

brightball wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always like to approach this conversation with a question: Should business that actually do create jobs in practice get bigger tax breaks? For example, if I by some miracle create a 1 man company that makes $100 million / year profit and somebody else creates a company that makes $100 million / year profit but has 2,000 employees...should the two companies be taxed differently? Walmart employees 1.6 million people…

I would say a corporation's taxes should, at the very least, cover the tax burden generated from not paying their employees enough to make a living wage. So if their employees are on government assistance, the cost to provide that assistance is inherently their burden. One way or another, every employee they employ will be earning a living wage from them. I don't even care about overlap. If both Target and Walmart ha…

That's an interesting view though.

If Walmart employees somebody who's part time and is on Medicaid are they on Medicaid because of Walmart or because they couldn't commit to enough hours to go full time? 9% of 1.6 million employees on Medicaid means they are employing over 1.4 million people who are not on Medicaid, all of whom are taxed for income, payroll, property, sales, etc.

If Walmart decided tomorrow to terminate all employees who were collecting Medicaid so that they could avoid a tax increase for that stat would it be a good thing? Is it better for a company to avoid hiring at all, even part time, if they can't fully purge the employee from government assistance?

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

#143

Post by hunterpayne » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:09 PM UTC

convolvatron wrote: post #50

hunterpayne wrote: post #22

The scientists who worked for the cigarette companies couldn't find a link to cancer. Economists who work in academia can't find working economic policies for the same reason. Private sector economists on the other hand...actually place bets and get rewarded or punished for being wrong. Not shockingly, they have very different opinions from the academic economists. PS And you wonder why Mississippi is richer than the…

every single time taxes for the wealthy were cut, it was argued that the laffler curve would make up for the loss in federal tax receipts, thus leaving us with the same level of services and a larger economy. every single time its resulted in lower tax intake compensated with more deficit spending.

Everytime we increase taxes past the optimum point of the Laffer curve, the government takes in less total tax. If you aren't past the optimum point, it won't. And your claims about loss of collected taxes haven't really ever come true at the US federal level. Total tax receipts in the 1980s were very high and there were several major tax cuts then. The same pattern usually follows, but the effect of the Laffer curve was deformed during the 1990s due to the dot com boom. Tax cuts in the 2000s increased tax receipts. The Trump cuts in the late 2010s did the same.

The last 6 CA tax increases all resulted in less taxes being collected the following year. Now there are multiple things that can impact total tax collected for CA (mostly the S&P500), but those factors all varied in those 6 tax increases. As for federal tax, if a tax cut doesn't result in an increase in taxes collected, then you are likely below the optimum point in the curve.

PS The government doesn't have a tax collection problem, it has a spending problem. On average, every public sector job costs 3 jobs in the private sector. If the size of a government is choking the economy, then messing about with the tax rate won't fix the problem.

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

#144

Post by notahacker » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:10 PM UTC

manlymuppet wrote: post #104

jibal wrote: 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…

There are supply side policy arguments that make sense.

But that's separate from the linked article, which was a discussion of an empirical paper that claims to find evidence that "tax cuts for the wealthy only benefit the rich"

A good faith way of addressing the argument would have been to look at examples where evidence appears to contradict this, or potential flaws in the academic paper, rather than dismiss the idea that supply siders believe that tax cuts for the wealthy benefit more than just the rich based on a label used in a blog headline...

(GP, in this context, refers to the "grandparent" comment upthread)

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

#145

Post by micromacrofoot » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:11 PM UTC

jimaway123 wrote: post #136

micromacrofoot wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes the false assumption that all the money given to the poor go back into high margin goods that the rich profit from? it ignores competition, ignores productivity gains by a lesser impoverished population, ignores the impact on small businesses... there are all sorts of losses inherent to poverty that shouldn't be discounted, like the inability to save via bulk purchasing, transportation, high cost credit, p…

It's called inflation. If you helicopter money on people they will bid up the prices of everything that they need. We had an experiment with this just a few years ago.

except that the biggest handouts during covid went to businesses, not people... so we didn't really, it was also a very supply constrained economy which was unique to the situation

at the very least locking up a trillion dollars with some douchebag isn't a reasonable strategy against inflation

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

#146

Post by smallmancontrov » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

win311fwg wrote: post #109

smallmancontrov wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

"Grow the pie" is the phrase used by proponents, because they understand that "trickle down" invites uncomfortable discussions about "are you sure this will actually help me" while the pie analogy cleverly makes this question difficult to talk about. But it's the same argument and everyone can see it.

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

#147

Post by manlymuppet » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:19 PM UTC

jibal wrote: post #78

manlymuppet wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know regex, but to be clear: trickle-down economics and supply-side economics are very different things. I don't blame you for conflating them since they are intentionally very confusing. One is a policy and the other is basically the name of a common criticism for that policy. For example, the Cartesian circle does not refer to any of the many mathematical advancements Rene Descartes discovered. Instead, it'…

> I don't know regex You know enough about it to misidentify that obvious string replacement command as an example of it. Your comments are incoherent and disingenuous. Saying that trickle down economics is "an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics" is very much saying that they refer to the same thing ... and it's the thing they refer to that TFA argues only helps the rich. You say…

> You know enough about it to misidentify that obvious string replacement command as an example of it.

I figured the syntax was like an either-or thing, but I wasn't sure.

> Saying that trickle down economics is 'an entirely pejorative term created by detractors of supply-side economics' is very much saying that they refer to the same thing...

I don't think it is. What I'm _not_ trying to say is that trickle-down economics is a nickname for supply-side economics. More, trickle-down economics is a strawman. Not the same thing or a different name, but an inaccurate version--a caricature which doesn't even resemble policy. Also I'm not sure what "TFA" stands for.

> This is the most inept attempt at an analogy that I can recall seeing.

It was kind of rough.

Regardless of the incompetence of my arguments though, I promise I am not being intentionally dense. I really do try to act in good faith here on HN, and I'd appreciate it if I could hear more of your perspective and continue this civilly.

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

#148

Post by CrzyLngPwd » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:19 PM UTC

The rich don't pay income tax like us little people do, they don't pay capital gains tax like us either.

They can avoid both through schemes such as taking low salaries and borrowing against assets they will never sell for a profit.

The tax system would need a complete overhaul to plug those holes, but it would always be a game of whack-a-mole.

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

#149

Post by hunterpayne » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:20 PM UTC

triceratops wrote: post #85

hunterpayne wrote: post #22

The scientists who worked for the cigarette companies couldn't find a link to cancer. Economists who work in academia can't find working economic policies for the same reason. Private sector economists on the other hand...actually place bets and get rewarded or punished for being wrong. Not shockingly, they have very different opinions from the academic economists. PS And you wonder why Mississippi is richer than the…

> And you wonder why Mississippi is richer than the UK Because Mississippi didn't have Brexit /s All jokes apart I don't see any real evidence that Mississippi is richer than the UK. Their median household disposable income is pretty damn close ($49k vs $54k). The UK has a better social and health safety net (where would you rather be unemployed or disabled?). Mississippi has much lower life expectancy than the UK (6…

Mississippi has far better food and better weather so I don't think life is better in the UK. Also, I have no idea where you got the life expectancy number from, but its not current. I suspect its just a bit old. Its currently like 74 and mostly that's the effect of the Oxy epidemic which is going away with time.

I have been to the UK and I have been to Mississippi. Quality of life in Mississippi is far higher unless you really really like musicals (London is big for those). Mississippi has a better history of music and writing over the last 100-150 years. The food is cheaper and far more tasty. The weather is warm and winters are mild. They generally don't get natural disasters unless you live right by the coast and even then its once in 70 years. The health care is far higher quality. The people are warm and friendly. And the cost of living is lower.

The British are known for being miserable for a reason.

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

#150

Post by smallmancontrov » Fri, Aug 07, 2026, 7:21 PM UTC

econ wrote: post #75

dasil003 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are rich, it allows a lot more time and funding to come up with arguments supporting policies that will make you even more rich.

The sad part is that, with the same formula, they could generate good ideas that also make them more rich.

Yeah, but that's hard. Taking lunch money from the poors is much easier.