The only form of trickle down that works is welfare paid for by taxes.
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If they just threw the money on those fires it would be more productive than handing yet more money to rich sh!ts. At least the money would do actual work being converted to heat and light.
We are going to go yet another round of voodoo economics and when the promised revenues and growth donât appear somehow it will all be the fault of The Others (immigrants, the poor, libs, anyone but the cheeto in chief). Best message we could send would be to elect Randy Bryce over Paul Ryan.
Iâve had that argument with a lot of the taxes/governement bad crowd.
Often theyâre on about how bad taxes are here and dreaming of moving to low tax states. Often places like Florida.
So I point out look at Florida. Look at the state of those low tax areas your jelious of. Bottom of the list for education, healthcare outcomes, jobs, property values, public transport and a thousand other things. Top of the lists for crime, teen pregnancy, etc. And Florida man is widely known as our nationâs greatest monster.
Youâve got the erosion of federal funding that comes with the tax cut trickle down trend over the last 4 decades. And states either become Florida and Missouri. Keep taxes low and state funding minimal to rely on that ever smaller federal funding to keep shit functional. Or they go the NY route and tax everything always to keep standards up.
Your property taxes are only so high because that funding needs to come from somewhere. You only end up pay 3 layers of income tax because that funding has to come from somewhere. The other alternative is Florida man.
Iâve been in situations myself where I wasnt making enough to pay anything to the federal government, And I still had to send more that I could really afford to my state and city. And those headline tax rates we talk about for federal donât tell the full story on the overall rate.
So yeah taxes are local. But thereâs definitely a connection between federal spending and local tax rates. If not a connection between both taxes themselves. I tend to think that more federal spending, And a higher tax rate to go with it. Would push down local and state taxes enough to yield a lower overall tax rate for most working and middle class Americans.
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Those shoes need stompier heels.
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Roosevelt very wisely made social security a payroll tax because people will see they are paying into it. But I agree that changing the name might be a good idea.
(However this idea that taxes are bad, and quite frankly the fact that everyone hates paying taxes (weâre all guilty of it) should be balanced by the fact that many countries are much higher taxed than the US and citizens donât really mind it as much because they really get a lot in return. Simply by checking the OECD taxation rates the US is clearly near the bottom as far as taxes being paid - of course the share of tax revenue has shifted from the corporate sector to the shrinking middle class. The corporate share went from 20% in the 70s to 2% now. )
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I believe in a revolution less bloody than the invention that augured the Reign of Terror, but neverthelessâŚ
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2 reasons.
Rich Republicans have successfully conflated social issues with their personal self-serving economic policies. If you are white, anti-abortion, pro-guns, anti-gay, you are given one and only one fiscal policy: please the rich. And because youâre unimaginative and conforming and alternative policies are the ones the liberals (ewww!) have taken up, you take that policy and like it.
America (with Republicans in the lead) have stoked the myth that all people are rich. Itâs just some are actually rich and others are âpre-richâ (sure, technically, they are poor or middle-class, but that million dollar idea, raise, investment or lottery payout is just around the corner). So, why wouldnât you want to foster policies that benefit only the rich?
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Interesting, I wasnât familiar with that. We should bring that back. The âEat the shit of the rich, if you can avoid being stomped by themâ tax cut bill would be even less popular than the âCut, Cut, Cutâ bill.
So, were the rich equated with draught horses, appreciated for pulling more than their own weight in society? Probably, given the time period. So curiousâŚ
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This is probably because they have fully bought into citizenâs united. Donations are political speech, so doing things for the donors is honorable rather than corrupt.
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I would like to respectfully disagree. Iâm an American citizen, and I donât hate paying taxes, I hate not getting services (shitty roads where I live, no public transportation, etc., but good schools and libraries, to be fair), I hate seeing people not be able to afford health care, or child care, or go hungry, or whatever else. When my German friends accept a job offer, they already cut the salary offer in half in their minds, knowing that about 50% goes to taxes. Then they decide if they can live off the rest. And they know they are caught in the social safety net if/when they have that random medical emergency, or other life event that can throw us in the US into a spiral of debt and despair. It seems like here at home, most of what gets taken off our paychecks goes to a bloated military, while the things Iâd be happy to chip in for are ever dwindling.
But as for the rest of your comment - agreed.
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Kansas: The Laboratory of Kakistocracy!
Itâs power worship. I think it has been bred into western culture.
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Maybe you do. And I feel the same way as a Canadian, I donât mind paying for services I get either, but I would you say that most Americans feel the same way as you? I donât think itâs always been that way.
This idea, that taxes and big government is bad, has been drummed in since the Reagan - Thatcher market revolution,
and of course over the past 30 years the beneficiaries of this have been at the top.
Ironically the most popular govt dept in Sweden is the tax dept - if you want to setup an AirBnb they help you how to go about it and how to pay the taxes. The Scandinavian countries are among the most taxed and yet people donât complain about it as much as they do in North America where they pay far less.
The US does not have a debt problem, it really is a revenue problem, taxes have been cut for decades.
Much of the problems would actually be solved if more taxes were paid, and directed to where they are needed.
Now which party running for office is going to talk about that?
I know Iâm probably preaching to the choir but we should all just write a $1000 cheque to our favourite rich person
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I donât think so, given the current state of things, but then again, given the current state of things (I believe gerrymandering has been mentioned in the thread, and Citizenâs United) I can hardly tell what most Americans feel anymore. Itâs a sorry state of affairs.
I bristled against your âeveryone hates to pay taxesâ statement only because in my mind, it oversimplifies, and I appreciate bb as a place where we can discuss without needing to do that. And itâs the internet, after all. Isnât bristling against the statements of strangers part of the whole point? 
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To me, the GOP looks more and more like a cargo cult.
Phase 1: Cut taxes for the rich
Phase 2: 
Phase 3: Profit!
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That might explain their fascination with underpants.
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Taking the shirt off our backs is not enough?
We really need to go back to looking at taxes as something that we get services for.
But it is an uphill battle, it means undoing decades, of neo-liberal propaganda that taxes are bad that tax cuts stimulate growth etc. (and we should know by now that Brownbackâs Kansas tax cut experiment failed, vs say the Minnesota left wing experiment which raised taxes in fact someone like Dayton should run for president.
The problem is that the Democratic party always shifts to centre and away from the working class and the Republicans have co-opted the angry working class rhetoric and try to harken back to a time when things were better.
That precariat part of the population is unfortunately where Trump gets a lot of support.
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Those property taxes go for shared infrastructure. It allows your city to maintain roads, pay for public schools, pay your police and firepeople, pay you elected officials. Those taxes help make your life and the life of your neighbors a little better.
Why not go live somewhere for a while with little to no property taxes and see the difference.
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