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Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

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Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#71

Post by bdangubic »

ath3nd wrote: post #57
M95D wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] has been a pretty effective approach over the millennia. But now, the other side has surveilance, tear gas, water cannons, rubber bullets, drones, and very profitable incarceration facilities.

The other side is not even 0.0001% of the population. Cops, military, firemen, they are all working class, like us. The veil drops when you realize we are ALL working class: the police, military, software engineers, firemen, nurses, doctors, lawyers, miners, farmers, teachers. The other side has nothing. We operate the farms, the weapons, the hospitals, the IT infrastructure, the surveillance, the army, the transport…

lovely words but also just wishful thinking / fantasy which why the other side never wins anything

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#72

Post by RickJWagner »

nabla9 wrote: post #55
RickJWagner wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s awesome. There are some very wealthy people that make a great show of demanding to pay higher taxes. Here’s a mechanism for them to demonstrate sincerity.

"If you want more taxes and are rich, just donate to treasury argument" again. We want systemic changes, not patrons. Taxes are for equity and fairness. Taxes are compulsory, donations are voluntary. Taxes are payment for being for being rich. Donations are taxes for being a good person. Great rant: David Mitchell on Tax Avoidance from The Last Leg https://youtu.be/xc8epam4NyY?t=150 Then Mitchell being more serious:…

I see it more like the wealthy want to maintain their relative position. They want others to have to pay to buy the things they want. They’ll still be just as wealthy, relatively, but they’ll also get the governmental changes they seek.

It’s not about getting the societal changes. If it were, they wouldn’t mind paying for it themselves. It’s about making others pay.

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#73

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #47
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as unproductive wealth transfers. Do you mean progressive taxation here, or something else?

Spending that will not benefit citizens in the future.

So benefits i guess? Or pensions? Sounds like you want the government to only spend money on capital projects which is reasonable, but it'll be very difficult to get there from here, given all the benefits/transfers that governments engage in.

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#74

Post by nabla9 »

jigguit wrote: post #70
nabla9 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you want more taxes and are rich, just donate to treasury argument" again. We want systemic changes, not patrons. Taxes are for equity and fairness. Taxes are compulsory, donations are voluntary. Taxes are payment for being for being rich. Donations are taxes for being a good person. Great rant: David Mitchell on Tax Avoidance from The Last Leg https://youtu.be/xc8epam4NyY?t=150 Then Mitchell being more serious:…

[dead]

"taxation is theft" is question-begging, since it relies on presupposing a particular theory of property entitlement.

Without assuming entitlement (where government helps you to protect your property with violence) "property is theft" also holds.

Replace the tax with property and it might be more apparent how illogical it is to advocate the former.

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#75

Post by lotsofpulp »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #73
lotsofpulp wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spending that will not benefit citizens in the future.

So benefits i guess? Or pensions? Sounds like you want the government to only spend money on capital projects which is reasonable, but it'll be very difficult to get there from here, given all the benefits/transfers that governments engage in.

Yes, especially in democracies with flattened and top heavy population histograms, since the young will never be able to outvote the old.

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#76

Post by tomhow »

mathiaspoint wrote: post #62
nabla9 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want maximize collected tax, fairness & equity, and incentives. This means: 1. convex effective tax curve when income increases. 2. curve is progressive (increasing) to adjust for diminishing marginal utility of income and wealth. https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/072815/what-margina... The emphasis on effective. Meaning: (income - taxes + benefits) curve is smooth and no tax avoidance. Incentives for the…

[flagged]

> How about fuck off to Venezuela

You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#77

Post by amy214 »

RhysU wrote: post #40
austin-cheney wrote: post #2

Why? Until congress is willing to pass a balanced budget this is just lightning your own money on fire.

If one thinks that more government is the solution to all problems, a painfully common modern view, then the most utility available from $1 one owns is handing that $1 directly to the government. In practice, no one donates like this with their own money. They just vote for the government to take incremental money from others via ever more taxation.

>In practice, no one donates like this with their own money. They just vote for the government to take incremental money from others via ever more taxation.

In practice they throw piles of money at Trump - knowingly that it will lead to them saving an even larger money pile and thusly a net win.

Trump, who then happily drives up debt. Taxing people more is so uncool, so let's go easy on the whole taxes thing, just have the money printer go brrrrr and let inflationary tax serve its purpose

Re: Donate to the Treasury to help pay down the $36.7T public debt

#78

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #75
disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So benefits i guess? Or pensions? Sounds like you want the government to only spend money on capital projects which is reasonable, but it'll be very difficult to get there from here, given all the benefits/transfers that governments engage in.

Yes, especially in democracies with flattened and top heavy population histograms, since the young will never be able to outvote the old.

Ah ok, I see where you're coming from. Very difficult to achieve this in a democracy though, so probably productivity increases and wealth taxes will be needed to fill this gap.
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