2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Elixir]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds like the government would force a person out of valuable assets, especially their home, which is most people's largest investment and provider of stability.

One could exempt primary residences, and/or set a minimum threshold for it to apply. A
Like the medical extortion business does today. They can take everything you own except your home. So you can go home and starve, I suppose.
I’m looking at having to give away a lot of equity to avoid exposure to medical liability.
They can take current structure is designed to benefit humongous for-profit entities. Patients, doctors, hospital janitors - everyone is a cog in the machine, and is utterly unimportant to the mission of the dispensing effective healthcare.
Unprofitable patients are consigned to either a systematic death spiral, or massive expenditures (returning them to profitability). Doctors with specialties not in sufficient demand are contracted rather than employed, and all the liability burden accrues to the doctor.
All that said, even today Medicare outperforms private insurance by a country mile in most ways.
The best way to go is don’t get sick or injured and don’t let your loved ones do any of that stuff either.

 

[Bomb#20]

I’ve always found the use of share of federal income taxes paid by income class to be misleading because it ignores FICA taxes which are based on income up to a point. If one adds in the estimated shifting back of the employer’s share of FICA as well, I’d expect a significant lower tax burden on the high earners.

But taxpayers on average get most of their FICA tax back with interest when they retire. Social security is mostly* a compulsory retirement annuity program, not a government funding program, so FICA's impact on progressivity is pretty tiny.

Whether or not your estimate of some lifetime burden is reasonable, it is totally irrelevant to assessing current tax “burdens”.

Why is it irrelevant? Suppose as a check-kiting scheme Congress enacted a new law requiring half of all income over a million dollars to be sent to the IRS for investment in personal treasury bond CDs. Each affected person gets his money back with interest in a year. Would you regard that as a return to 1950s-level progressivity?

 

[laughing dog]

I’ve always found the use of share of federal income taxes paid by income class to be misleading because it ignores FICA taxes which are based on income up to a point. If one adds in the estimated shifting back of the employer’s share of FICA as well, I’d expect a significant lower tax burden on the high earners.

But taxpayers on average get most of their FICA tax back with interest when they retire. Social security is mostly* a compulsory retirement annuity program, not a government funding program, so FICA's impact on progressivity is pretty tiny.

Whether or not your estimate of some lifetime burden is reasonable, it is totally irrelevant to assessing current tax “burdens”.

Why is it irrelevant?

See the underlined bold-faced phrase. The data Derec used measured current tax burdens, not lifetime tax burdens.

 

[Elixir]

Why is it irrelevant? Suppose as a check-kiting scheme Congress enacted a new law requiring half of all income over a million dollars to be sent to the IRS for investment in personal treasury bond CDs. Each affected person gets his money back with interest in a year. Would you regard that as a return to 1950s-level progressivity?

Why that, instead of investing in
public infrastructure and services?
You know, like in the fifties …
Personally, 50% above $1m/yr sounds like an improvement, if it progresses to >90% above a billion. Sure, some billionaire might have to forego that second villa in Monaco, but that’s probably a survivable calamity.

 

[Bomb#20]

the wealthy pay a disproportionally high share of total federal income taxes.

What an incredibly stupidcontrary to my religion thing to say.

FIFY.

The wealthy TAKE a disproportionately high share of all wealth

Zero-sum-game mentality noted. Funny story about that. About ten thousand years ago the world mostly shifted from taking-based economies to making-based economies. But an awful lot of people's economic intuitions still haven't gotten the memo.

and PAY a lower percentage of what they take, than people on the bottom.

Got any evidence for that? Derec's chart contradicts you.

They also USE more “common property” (roads, airports etc) than poor people.

No doubt; but disproportionately so? Does a guy making $500k a year drive ten times further than a guy making $50000 a year?

“My secretary pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than I do, and that’s wrong.”
-Warren Buffet

Warren Buffett is a special case. He has a very well-paid secretary; and his effective tax rate reflects his capital gains. Capital gains tax is based on comparing purchase price in big dollars with sales price in small dollars, much as if road-use taxes were based on subtracting the number of miles on your car at the beginning of the year from the number of kilometers on your car at the end of the year. If you nominally made 6% on your investments but that's in 3% smaller dollars, half your profit is fictitious but is taxed as if it were real, which doubles the effective capital gains tax rate on your investment from a nominal 24% to a real 48%, well in excess of the top 37% rate on salaries. But that 6% return is for typical investors. Warren Buffett has been earning nominal 17% returns year after year for decades. Cutting that to a 14% real return after inflation means only 18% of his capital gain is fictitious, so his real capital gain tax rate is only 29%. So while he was* no doubt right that his secretary pays a higher percentage of her income in taxes than he does, his experience doesn't imply the same is true of normal rich people, who aren't nearly as brilliant investors as Buffett is.

(* Also note that the nominal capital gains rate was only 20% when Buffett made his famous remark.)

 

[Bomb#20]

But taxpayers on average get most of their FICA tax back with interest when they retire. Social security is mostly* a compulsory retirement annuity program, not a government funding program, so FICA's impact on progressivity is pretty tiny.

Whether or not your estimate of some lifetime burden is reasonable, it is totally irrelevant to assessing current tax “burdens”.

Why is it irrelevant?

See the underlined bold-faced phrase. The data Derec used measured current tax burdens, not lifetime tax burdens.

So, proof-by-repetition and counterargument snipped. Time for us to agree to disagree.

 

[Bomb#20]

Why is it irrelevant? Suppose as a check-kiting scheme Congress enacted a new law requiring half of all income over a million dollars to be sent to the IRS for investment in personal treasury bond CDs. Each affected person gets his money back with interest in a year. Would you regard that as a return to 1950s-level progressivity?

Why that, instead of investing in
public infrastructure and services?
You know, like in the fifties …
Personally, 50% above $1m/yr sounds like an improvement, if it progresses to >90% above a billion. Sure, some billionaire might have to forego that second villa in Monaco, but that’s probably a survivable calamity.

Why that? In order to make the scenario analogous to taking 15% of a worker's wage and returning it to him with interest when he retires. It was a thought-experiment, not a policy proposal. The point was to explain why social security tax should be largely discounted in overall estimates of tax progressivity; I wasn't offering an opinion on the merits of 50s-level marginal tax rates.

 

[jonatha]

...

and PAY a lower percentage of what they take, than people on the bottom.

Got any evidence for that? Derec's chart contradicts you.

That's not what Derec's chart shows.

It shows that the rich pay a majority of income taxes. It does not show that their effective tax rate is higher than the not-so rich.

* Also note that the nominal capital gains rate was only 20% when Buffett made his famous remark.)

It still is.

 

[laughing dog]

But taxpayers on average get most of their FICA tax back with interest when they retire. Social security is mostly* a compulsory retirement annuity program, not a government funding program, so FICA's impact on progressivity is pretty tiny.

Whether or not your estimate of some lifetime burden is reasonable, it is totally irrelevant to assessing current tax “burdens”.

Why is it irrelevant?

See the underlined bold-faced phrase. The data Derec used measured current tax burdens, not lifetime tax burdens.

So, proof-by-repetition and counterargument snipped. Time for us to agree to disagree.

You had no relevant counter argument.

I’m sorry you are unable or unwilling to comprehend the simple concept that future receipts are irrelevant to the concept of the current tax payments to income ratio (the numbers Derec posted).

 

[Bomb#20]

and PAY a lower percentage of what they take, than people on the bottom.

Got any evidence for that? Derec's chart contradicts you.

That's not what Derec's chart shows.

It shows that the rich pay a majority of income taxes. It does not show that their effective tax rate is higher than the not-so rich.

That's exactly what it shows. The top 1% are earning 22% of the income and paying 42% of the taxes; the 5%-1% are earning 16% and paying 20%. (42/22)/(20/16) = 1.53. So their effective tax rate is 53% higher. The same goes all the way down the table. The top 5% are earning 38% of the income and paying 62% of the taxes; the 10%-5% are earning 11% and paying 11%. (62/38)/(11/11) = 1.63. If we call somebody at the 95th percentile "the rich" and somebody at the 90th percentile "the not-so-rich", the rich's effective tax rate is 63% higher than the not-so-rich's.

* Also note that the nominal capital gains rate was only 20% when Buffett made his famous remark.)

It still is.

You're not counting the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) enacted as part of Obamacare.

 

[bilby]

You're not counting the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax (NIIT) enacted as part of Obamacare.

That sounds like NIIT picking...

 

[Tigers!]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds like the government would force a person out of valuable assets, especially their home, which is most people's largest investment and provider of stability.

One could exempt primary residences, and/or set a minimum threshold for it to apply. A

In Australia the primary residence is currently exempt for many govt benefits etc.
But the clamour to remove that exemption is growing.

Like the medical extortion business does today. They can take everything you own except your home. So you can go home and starve, I suppose.
I’m looking at having to give away a lot of equity to avoid exposure to medical liability.
They can take current structure is designed to benefit humongous for-profit entities. Patients, doctors, hospital janitors - everyone is a cog in the machine, and is utterly unimportant to the mission of the dispensing effective healthcare.
Unprofitable patients are consigned to either a systematic death spiral, or massive expenditures (returning them to profitability). Doctors with specialties not in sufficient demand are contracted rather than employed, and all the liability burden accrues to the doctor.
All that said, even today Medicare outperforms private insurance by a country mile in most ways.
The best way to go is don’t get sick or injured and don’t let your loved ones do any of that stuff either.

Indeed.

 

[Elixir]

Does a guy making $500k a year drive ten times further than a guy making $50000 a year?

I see that kind of deceptive question offered as an equivocation with disgusting regularity.
Note that the 500k guy probably doesn’t drive whatsoever. His chauffeur drives his own car to work, drives the boss to the airport in the company limo, where the boss boards the corporate jet just in time to make the Chicago meeting and still make it to LA for the gala dinner.
At the end of the day he hasn’t driven at all but has caused the burning of much more than 10x the petrol vs his chauffeur, and has used many many times as much “public” infrastructure.
The fact that he probably hasn’t spent a dime of his 500k salary on fuel all day long, is just an aside; the main story is that yes, very rich people consume much more of everything than poor people do. The king of Brunei might be an exception. I don’t know. But as a rule applied to Americans, yes. The 500k guy typically consumes (causes the consumption of) >10x what the 50k guy consumes.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

They also USE more “common property” (roads, airports etc) than poor people.

No doubt; but disproportionately so? Does a guy making $500k a year drive ten times further than a guy making $50000 a year?

Is $50k a year poor now?

Also, can we get back to the conversation about how to fund the government and the programs supported by the vast majority of the public (Social Security, Medicare, Military) and we can pay for iit using math, not platitudes?

 

[Colonel Sanders]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds like the government would force a person out of valuable assets, especially their home, which is most people's largest investment and provider of stability.

You have obviously not checked out the tax system of the 1950s - early 60s.
Nobody got forced out of their homes then; only very rich people paid the top 90% plus tax rate and that only applied to incomes above $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for married couples. 200,000 of 1955 dollars was worth 2.5 million today.
Do you think people would often lose their homes today if there were high taxes above $1.25 for individuals and couples taking in more than 2.5 million per year?
All I can say is BOO FUCKING HOO!
You know what wasn’t so common in the mid 1950s?
HOMELESS PEOPLE

There was a thriving middle class and resources to keep poor people from sleeping on Swiz’ doorstep.

I'm familiar with the higher rate of taxation back then. America was also in its post-WW2 boom because Europe had destroyed itself for the second time less than 30 years. We were the only nation that could reliably fund the rebuilding of Europe and Japan. We were the largest credit nation the world had ever seen. That's just one factor. There are others.

From a 5 second Google search:

The top 1% of earners in America pay the highest share of federal income taxes, accounting for roughly 38% to 40% of all federal income tax revenue. While high-income earners bear the largest burden, the top 10% contribute over 70% of total federal income taxes, with the top 50% covering nearly 97% of the total revenue

This notion that taxing "The Rich" (whatever that might mean to any given individual) is naive at best and malevolent in practice. For example,
and if you took all of Gates, Bezos, and Musks' money it would fund most of the military for about one year.

Then what?

Market destabilization, the stock market would tank, real estate would drop through the floor, and it would make 2008 look like a tiny bump in the road. And before you start with real estate tanking being a great thing, it wouldn't make it more affordable for anyone except those who could afford to buy up those depressed properties and hold them for years, if not in perpetuity. They could either rent those homes or sell them 20 years later and realize a large profit because believe it or not, things go up in price over time.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fun fact, we could tax the lower 50% all of their earnings, but that would only get us 1/3 of the way there to paying the total 2022 budget outlay. So can we stop whining about how the bottom 50% doesn't pay enough? They don't make enough in complete aggregate to pay the US Budget!!! It isn't even close.

I hate tax policy conversations because it never has anything to do with balancing spending. It is a whine fest about who should or shouldn't pay taxes, there is never any math involved.

Let's do some remedial math. In 2022, $14.8 trillion in income. The budget was $6.3 trillion. $6.3 / $14.8 = 42%. We need a flat tax of 42% of all earned income to balance the books. Who's with me? Let's get on board with a flat tax of 42%. Or pick from Social Security, Medicare, and Military and choose which one goes away to lower the flat tax to 33%.

Some other bright idea are welcomed, or shut the fuck up!

 

[laughing dog]

Fun fact, we could tax the lower 50% all of their earnings, but that would only get us 1/3 of the way there to paying the total 2022 budget outlay. So can we stop whining about how the bottom 50% doesn't pay enough? They don't make enough in complete aggregate to pay the US Budget!!! It isn't even close.

I hate tax policy conversations because it never has anything to do with balancing spending. It is a whine fest about who should or shouldn't pay taxes, there is never any math involved.

Let's do some remedial math. In 2022, $14.8 trillion in income. The budget was $6.3 trillion. $6.3 / $14.8 = 42%. We need a flat tax of 42% of all earned income to balance the books. Who's with me? Let's get on board with a flat tax of 42%. Or pick from Social Security, Medicare, and Military and choose which one goes away to lower the flat tax to 33%.

Some other bright idea are welcomed, or shut the fuck up!

Why use personal income as the base? GDP is a measure of income and it was a 25.46 trillion. A flat tax of 6.3/25.46 =0.247 or 25%!

 

[Derec]

Just because you inferred something does not mean that I actually wrote or meant what you inferred.

Except you did.

I have been reading WaPo for decades but in recent years haven’t bothered with the Opinions pages. I did today and omg. We need to eliminate all billionaires by taxing them down to size.

No, I don't think that we should have billionaires. The reason I do not think we should have billionaires is that billionaires become billionaires because we have allowed our tax structure and corporate laws and labor laws and real estate laws to create conditions under which some people can avoid paying their fair share and foist the burden of their extreme privilege onto the other 99.99 percent of us.

And you did again.
How would you define "fair share"?
Also, billionaires become billionaires because they own a significant share of companies that explode in value. When Musk joined Tesla in 2004, it was worth mere millions with an initial investment of $7.5M. When it was taken public in 2010, it's market cap was ~$2.2G. Now it's over $1T.
I do not see how you can avoid having billionaires without making it impossible to own shares in companies that become very valuable over time.

They avoid all sorts of legal obligations, laws, etc. which is absolutely against what our country was founded on.

Which laws, for example?

That's what I object to. I don't much care about billionaires bidding against each other for some tacky mansion or another. I DO care that billionaires move into a neighborhood and take it over, impeding the usual and customary movements, etc. within said neighborhood for their own convenience.

There aren't enough billionaires in the US to take over entire new neighborhoods. The neighborhoods where billionaires like Bezos have their mansions have been super rich for generations. For example, Bezos owns the Jack Warner Estate (of the Warner Brothers fame) in Beverly Hills which was built in 1937. Bezos has hardly taken over a neighborhood filled with normal people with that purchase!

I do care that billionaires can buy elections and legislators etc. so that laws favor them vs the rest of us.

I agree that Citizens United was wrongly decided. That is not a sufficient reason to want to "eliminate billionaires" through a massive wealth tax though.

I do care that billionaires can purchase children and others.

Where can they do that? In the US, the 13th Amendment is still in force.

I do care that billionaires can purchase law enforcement. I do care that billionaires can avoid prosecution for crimes they commit.

Is there a particular case you are referring to here? Or is it just based on your prejudices?

I do care that billionaires are treated differently than you or I would be.

People are treated differently based on their circumstances. That is hardly exclusive to billionaires. 1%ers are treated differently than you (presumably) and I.

I do care that people who work more than 40 hrs/week still cannot afford housing and food and that for too many, decent health insurance is a fantasy. Because billionaires earn their money off of the poverty of these people.

There are some fulfillment centers nearby. The posted warehouse jobs pay $18.50-$20.50. That's hardly low wages, especially given that Metro Atlanta is a MCOL area.
Yes, a lot of people are struggling, but I think placing special blame on the billionaires is simplistic. For one, they create jobs. Not just warehouse jobs spread around the country, but also higher paying professional jobs. Same goes for Tesla and SpaceX. A lot of high paying engineer jobs were created.
Healthcare? Made much better with Obamacare, but there is much need for improvement. I think that efforts for government to pay more of the cost is misguided without efforts to better control costs. Doctors in the US make much more than those in other countries, and there are high costs associated with malpractice lawsuits - both cost of malpractice insurance for doctors and costs of "defensive medicine", i.e. ordering medically unnecessary CYA tests and procedures.
Housing? With increasing population and desire to have more space, housing costs necessarily increase.

I read NYT but no, I don't read all of the NYT and depending on what else is going on in my life (multiple significant issues right now within my family/friend group) I read more or less, depending on the day. I confess that if I read the word 'influencer' I figure it's just a bunch of nonsense that no one with sense would pay any attention to.

The chief problem is that many voters lack any sense.
That said, as much as I disagree with Piker, he is not the type of influencer where it's low effort content whose sole purpose is to shill for some product. He actually interviews newsmakers and such.

Kind of like what Hailey Bieber wore whenever she was last photographed.

Had to look her up to even have an idea who she was.

I mean: Charlie Kirk, a mediocre whte college drop out figured out that a lot of people have sufficiently low self esteem that they were happy to listen to some guy tell them that the fact that they are stuck in dead end jobs is not their fault but the fault of women and minorities who finished college and worked their way into better jobs/better pay.

When you have a system where certain people are given preferential access to college and professional/graduate schools based on their race and gender, then he has a point, no?

During the 1950's there was a huge expansion of business and much higher corporate tax rates.

What were corporate taxes during the 1950s? What was the actual rate of business growth? In other words, [citation needed]
Besides, it was a much different time: aftermath of WWII, most of European industrial base devastated, with US largely unscathed.
In the more contemporary era, US corporate tax rates are not very low. Obama-era corporate tax rate hike resulted in them being higher than most of the world.

Quit shilling for Bezos.

Are you conflating Bezos the individual with Amazon the corporation?

 

[Derec]

It was a very small group of MEN who attacked us. Should we hate all men?

You do anyway.
But are you seriously comparing an immutable biological fact with a destructive ideology like Islamism?

Besides, there have been many female terrorists. Terrorism is not the sole province of men.
Just one example among many:

 Reem Riyashi

Honest questioning means looking for facts, context, understanding.

And not making excuses for evil ideologies, be they fascism or Islamism.

 

[Derec]

Platner reaching for the easy to grab fruit.

In this case, the fruit is quite rotten.
Suspending the fuel tax would increase demand, making supply problems worse, not better.
Going after domestic fossil fuel producers would decrease supply, again making problems worse.
Price controls on electricity are likewise an idiotic idea.

Worked for the GOP, so do a double dip.

Bad ideas are bad ideas no matter which side of the aisle they come from.

The trouble with populists, however, is solutions aren't as simple as cutting energy taxes and wealth taxes.

Indeed.

It does get tiring to hear how America is growing discontent with gasoline prices, when they have pushed for larger vehicles, fought inefficiency, and live so far away from work (yes, I get in some places that is the only place they can afford to live).

These super-large pickup trucks have become quite popular around here. You know the type, the hood goes up to your chest and it gets ~15 mpg. These vehicles don't only burn a lot of gas or diesel, but they also, because of how heavy they are, damage the roadways much more than regular sedans. The wear and tear goes up far more more than proportionally with axle load.
Policies, including tax policies, should disincentivize such large vehicles for personal use, but good luck with expecting this new crop of "populist bro" Democrats like Platner and Talarico to advocate that. Platner looks like the type to have an F250 as a daily driver himself, and Talarico in a recent interview I heard was waxing poetic (and approvingly) about how Hispanic Americans view buying a large truck as a sign of success.