2026 Mid-Term Elections

[Elixir]

the vast majority of $500K/year Americans do not have chauffeurs

Unsupported assertion. But I’ll take the bullet for that, and your assertion is provisionally accepted. My beef isn’t with the income of the 500k guy.
Even a fiscal lowlife like me can get lucky and approach 500k in an exceptional year.
(Disclaimer: have paid zero or near zero fed taxes for the last three years because I have lived off held cash and losses offsetting cap gains.)
A person lucky enough to own an home outright might even realize more than 500k more than once, in a long enough lifetime. But the 50m/yr guy is another story, and the few 5b+/yr guys are a real problem because in addition to having the power to tilt the entire playing field in their own favor, they buy elections to ensure their continued ability to do so, and there are now zero constraints on that.

 

[Toni]

What is interesting is to look at the lifestyle of a family of four earning $500,000 to one making $50,000. Better still, a family of three earning $500,000 to a family of four earning $50,000, because that is closer to reality. We do know there is an inverse relationship between income and family size at these levels.

It's the difference between private school and public.
It's the difference between having a thousand dollars a month allocated for incidentals and wondering if you can keep enough food in the house.
It's the difference between quality child care and mom only being able to work part time while the kids are in school.
It's the difference between owning and renting.
It's the difference between three people living in 4500 square foot home and four living in a 1400 square foot home.
It's the difference between wondering what gas costs these days and not being able to fill up at $5 a gallon.
It's the difference between being concerned with shopping for quality food and frequent dining out and grocery shopping at Walmart.
It's the difference between contributing three thousand dollars a month to your 401k and living paycheck to paycheck.
It's the difference between equity in a home and wondering if you'll ever be able to afford a home.
It's the difference between being able to take two or three vacations a year to unwind and living a life of constant stress and worry.
It's the difference between having a vacation home and worrying if you'll make rent because the car broke down.

Do I care how the playing field is leveled? Only to the point that it can stand up in court.

Two things I quibble about: 1. The assumption that private schools are better than public ones. That’s not necessarily so and I would argue is rarely so. Of course that’s based upon my limited experience.

2. Which court? And who bought it? Unfortunately those are questions now in play

 

[bilby]

1. The assumption that private schools are better than public ones. That’s not necessarily so and I would argue is rarely so.

The benefit of private schools comes not from educational superiority, but from networking superiority.

It's not about what you know, it's about who you know.

 

[ZiprHead]

I used to be a big fan of shows like CNBC and I distinctly recall the day he made that statement. He mentioned that the tax rate was much lower for the extremely wealthy compared to the middle class like those who worked in his office. He never mentioned an amount of taxes, just the rate paid. Carry on....

This is the elephant in the room. Derec's chart does not dispute this fact.

When the contractor illegally released Trump's and other super wealthy people's taxes, we found out many pay almost no tax at all.

 

[ZiprHead]

Thanks, that clarifies things. Drilling down the numbers, it turns out the reason Buffett's total tax rate is so low is because he gives so much to charity.

Another luxury most people cannot afford.

Also, I would like a citation where you came up with that.

 

[Toni]

1. The assumption that private schools are better than public ones. That’s not necessarily so and I would argue is rarely so.

The benefit of private schools comes not from educational superiority, but from networking superiority.

It's not about what you know, it's about who you know.

Oh, yeah. I know that. I figured that out when my oldest went to a private university and then pledged a fraternity.

I lived a very sheltered life just above the line for middle class most of my life up to that point. I knew what it took fir my parents to be able to provide us kids with more stability and a shot at college.

I remember a guy I briefly and unwisely dated in college criticizing something I said as ‘being so middle class’ and thinking at the time ‘Damn straight and glad of it. Not having outdoor plumbing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

Which I knew from my early childhood experience and observing my grandparents who on either side did not get indoor plumbing until I was well into elementary school. Of course I was in college the first time in the mid 1970’s when a lot of people despised the middle class they thought pretentious, claimed they wanted to emulate the ‘simplicity’ of those who labored in fields but secretly aspired to be wealthy.

 

[Toni]

1. The assumption that private schools are better than public ones. That’s not necessarily so and I would argue is rarely so.

The benefit of private schools comes not from educational superiority, but from networking superiority.

It's not about what you know, it's about who you know.

Oh, yeah. I know that. I figured that out when my oldest went to a private university and then pledged a fraternity.

I lived a very sheltered life just above the line for middle class most of my life up to that point. I knew what it took fir my parents to be able to provide us kids with more stability and a shot at college.

I remember a guy I briefly and unwisely dated in college criticizing something I said as ‘being so middle class’ and thinking at the time ‘Damn straight and glad of it. Not having outdoor plumbing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

Which I knew from my early childhood experience and observing my grandparents who on either side did not get indoor plumbing until I was well into elementary school. Of course I was in college the first time in the mid 1970’s when a lot of people despised the middle class they thought pretentious, claimed they wanted to emulate the ‘simplicity’ of those who labored in fields but secretly aspired to be wealthy.

Not having INDOOR plumbing….

For a few years as a young child, my family did not have an indoor toilet. I don’t remember minding as a child but I know my mother found it very difficult. And I would not like to return to that kind of situation.

 

[Derec]

Unless they win, that shows nothing.

Of course it does. It shows that "progressive" candidates like Abdul El-Sayed, Cori Bush, Saikat Chakrabarti, Adam Hamawy and others want to campaign with an unashamed antisemite and Hamas supporter. He also supports Russia and China btw.

Okay, but that is consistent with the notion that he is reflecting views, not influencing them.

It is consistent with both. Once the audience is watching his streams, he can influence their opinions.

 

[Derec]

Both tax liabilities are based on income. That is the relevant part when one is trying to show a tax burden in that time period. The fact someone may get a payment 40 years from now or 20 years from now or 2 years for now is not relevant to the current burden.

If you get a payment at a certain age, then it's a pension contribution, not really a tax. If you get a payment if you get sick or disabled, then it's an insurance premium, not really a tax. Yes, it functions similar to a tax on your pay stub, but its purpose is very different.

With federal income taxes, there is no specific benefit paying into in entitles you to. That is what distinguishes a tax from a mandatory contribution into an entitlement scheme.

 

[Derec]

FICA revenue arises from FICA taxes. My income stems from my earnings, not a tax. So your examples are comparing horse apples to apples.

It's disproving your notion that Social Security investing their surplus into Treasuries makes FICA contributions a tax.
Or else, why did you bring up that tidbit anyway? Many entities invest in government bonds.

And what determines "out of proportion"? Unless you are claiming that your judgment is the universally acclaimed standard, you cannot possibly prove that Toni's point is wrong. You can show why you disagree, but you cannot prove it is wrong.

Proportional means that if x increases by a factor, y increases by the same factor. For example, if income doubles and taxes double, they are proportional. Toni claimed that the higher earners pay a disproportionally small share of taxes. The facts disprove her claim. It is exactly the opposite.

Income as a metric does not offer any clue as to what constitutes "proportionate" or "disproportionate". So you are, in essence, using proportionate to mean "whatever Derec thinks is fair" as the baseline metric if you think you are PROVING Toni wrong.

Wrong, and I have explained it at length. Higher incomes pay more taxes as proportion of their income than those with lower incomes. Toni wrongly claimed the opposite.
You are trying to muddy the waters here, but then again, that is your usual MO.

 

[Bomb#20]

Thanks, that clarifies things. Drilling down the numbers, it turns out the reason Buffett's total tax rate is so low is because he gives so much to charity. The tax code lets people deduct charity from their income to encourage charitable giving because helping the needy is a big part of what government does so philanthropists are volunteering to do part of the government's job for it. In effect we tax people on what they get, not on what their charities get. If we correct for the amount of charity Buffett is allowed to deduct, his effective total tax rate was 25%, not 17.7%. (And this actually understates it for Buffett since he actually gives away a lot more of his income than the 30% he's allowed to deduct.)

Buffett thinks his effective tax rate is too low. It doesn't matter what he does with his income to get the rate that low.

Why not? Seems to me it matters a lot. Getting it that low by using one's income to bribe legislators to write a personalized exemption just for you into the tax code is bad; getting it that low by doing the public some great service the legislature wanted citizens to do for others and therefore chose to reward is good.

But morality aside, consider: if your total tax rate is 18% because you invested in a tax-shelter, that means the IRS is letting you keep 82% of your money for yourself. If your total tax rate is 18% because you voluntarily gave away 30% of your income to the American people, that means the IRS is letting you keep 52% of your money for yourself. Compare these numbers to the 67% that the other people in Buffett's office are allowed to keep for themselves. What makes 18% < 33% a better measure of progressivity vs. regressivity in the tax system than 52% < 67% would be?

Even if Buffett's actual effective tax rate is 25%, that is still lower than his employees stated effective tax rate.

True, but it brings the rates into the same ballpark, where the second-order effects we've already discussed need to be taken into account. It seems very likely that his employees were counting FICA. I know we aren't going to see eye-to-eye on this, but I think the fact that his employees are going to get most of their FICA taxes back with interest when they retire is pretty darn important for calculations of progressivity. Taking that into account, and also taking into account that Buffett was taxed on his fictional capital gains because his basis was measured in bigger dollars than his sales price, it looks like both Buffett and his employees are effectively paying something like 28%.

And even if their effective tax rate is about the same or lower, the point that a billionaire's tax rate is too low (at least according to him).

He's entitled to his opinion; personally I don't see anything unreasonable about a 28% tax rate on everybody who can afford it, (plus 4.5% Nebraska state tax, I wish!). The American people aren't under-taxed; our government over-spends. But personal tastes aside, this isn't about Buffett and his experience doesn't generalize to other rich people. Other than charity, the main reason his tax rate is so low is that the nominal tax rate on capital gains is lower than for ordinary income. But nominal does not equal real. The difference between the two is small for him but big for others -- a lot less of Buffett's reportable capital gains are fictitious than normal rich people's because he's better at investing than they are. His real capital gains rate is still lower than the ordinary income rate; theirs isn't. Even though Buffett himself isn't paying a higher effective rate than his staff, most rich people are. This comes out clearly in Derec's table. Buffett is a one-off.

As for why his office staff's rate was 32.9%, that's implausibly high for federal income tax given BH's legendarily modest pay scale, so it presumably includes state taxes, or FICA, or both.

Why would you think Buffett or his employees don't know how to compare effective tax rates?

Who said they don't? My whole analysis is based on assuming they do.

But, since you bring up the topic... What Buffett did was clearly not a scientific measurement -- he didn't have tax accountants collect everyone's tax returns and analyze them; he just asked around the office and averaged the answers. Of course Buffett knows how to compare effective tax rates, but that doesn't mean all the respondents did. Buffett's 17.7% was his total tax rate, so presumably that's what he asked his employees about. But what are the odds that they all understood this? Their answers averaged 32.9%. Would you bet a nickel that none of them told Buffett their marginal tax rates?

 

[Bomb#20]

... Where did you get your 2900 bit from? ...

... Also suspect that my 2900x estimate is low as well.

So you just got it from thin air then?

For every billionaire in the US, there are about 430,000 people living below the poverty line,

Yowza! I was today years old when I learned we have 425 million people below the poverty line.

hardly using any “common property”, while billionaires gorge on it.

Where do you get this stuff? The notion that those in poverty hardly use any common property is beyond absurd. What, do you think "common property" is 90% airports? The very poor use Medicaid, emergency rooms for non-emergency medical problems, Medicare, public schools, roads, social services, police protection, food stamps, EITC, and in extreme cases, public parks and sidewalks as homes.

Got any evidence for that? (That the rich consume much more “public” resources than the poor)

Oh no, no evidence at all. Unless I happen to look up. Or go by our general aviation airport. Or check out forest service allowances for “fire mitigation” on thousand+ acre private lands bordering on national forest … etc etc

Oh for the love of god! You snipped what I'd quoted and substituted what you wished my question was about: "(That the rich consume much more “public” resources than the poor)". Let me help you out with that. You said "The 500k guy typically consumes (causes the consumption of) >10x what the 50k guy consumes.". Well, "much more" does not imply "> 10x", and data is not the plural of anecdote.

If a person with a billion dollars does something to earn another hundred dollars, you are advocating the law take that hundred all away from her. If a person with a thousand dollars does something to earn another hundred dollars, you do not advocate the law take that hundred all away from him.

That is bull... and you know it

How the heck would I know that? What I wrote is obviously true and you supplied no reason to think it isn't. Exactly which part of "We need to eliminate all billionaires" didn't you understand? If a person with a billion dollars does something to earn another hundred dollars and the law doesn't take that hundred away and then some, then there's still a billionaire! This is not rocket science. So how about when you feel like telling somebody what he knows, you put two seconds of thought into considering whether you have a reason to think he knows it?

If a person with a billion dollars does something to earn another hundred dollars,

I advocate that if they MAKE a billion and earns another hundred, MOST of it shoukd be taxed. Like back when America was Great.

So what? Why are you making this about you? Not everything is about you. You aren't the person who said "We need to eliminate all billionaires", which is why you aren't the person I said "you are advocating the law take that hundred all away from her" to.

you are advocating the law take that hundred all away from her.

Oh … right.
I missed the “her” part. Definitely - ya let them wimmenz get away with having money, society comes apart at the seams.

It's called "non-sexist language". Apparently it's all the rage with the kids nowadays.

Does a guy making ten times that drive ten times further than a guy making that?

The guy making ten times that DOESN’T DRIVE.

I asked him about a guy making ten times what Jimmy thinks is poor. If that's the poverty line, I make over ten times the poverty line. I was today years old when I found out I DON'T DRIVE.

 

[Elixir]

The very poor use Medicaid, emergency rooms for non-emergency medical problems, Medicare, public schools, roads, social services, police protection, food stamps, EITC, and in extreme cases, public parks and sidewalks as homes.

I use most of that stuff too. Its peanuts per capita compare to the excesses of billionaires. Your “very poor” (a well defined group I’m sure) are always the lament of those they serve.
Their terrible impact upon the lifestyles of the “very rich” is just the high price the very rich have to pay in this unjust world!
I feel for you B20, but
Can’t
Quite
Reach
You

 

[Elixir]

Where do you get this stuff?

From experience you obviously lack.

 

[Elixir]

I asked him about a guy making ten times what Jimmy thinks is poor. If that's the poverty line, I make over ten times the poverty line.

Congrats. Maybe you won’t freeze or starve.

“Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion – its highest level in history, according to a new Oxfam report today as the World Economic Forum opens in Davos.
Billionaire wealth has increased by 81 per cent since 2020. This comes as one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty.”
-Oxfam (an organization that is infamous for causing billionaires to starve)

 

[southernhybrid]

I'm not sure why we are so fixated on the tax rates and poverty level when it comes to discussing the midterms, but since we are, I found a list that gives the actual level of income to be in poverty in 2026. It varies a bit by region and included a link to what one can make to qualify for other benefits. ( I think )
https://povertylevelcalculator.com/poverty-level-calculation-tables/Household size.

Sorry, it wouldn't let me paste the information, butt the poverty rate for one person is about 15,950 per year in most areas. You can access the details in the link, if interested.

 

[unapologetic]

Is it possable to levy a sales tax (terrif?) on EXPORTS?
(I know it would hurt sales, my question is, is it posable.)
That is what Rump claimed he was gonna do with terrifs.
--------------------------
I don't trust billionaires. But “No billionaires” is brainless.
Putting a cap on individual income growth, kills incentive, puts a cap on the growth of your total economy.

 

[unapologetic]

IMO people who have no homes either don’t want one or can’t get one.

Huh? Are there people who want one and can get one, but don't?

Buffett's total tax rate is so low is because he gives so much to Charity.

What tax bracet is she in?

 

[laughing dog]

Unless they win, that shows nothing.

Of course it does. It shows that "progressive" candidates like Abdul El-Sayed, Cori Bush, Saikat Chakrabarti, Adam Hamawy and others want to campaign with an unashamed antisemite and Hamas supporter. He also supports Russia and China btw.

It doesn’t show he is an influencer. Duh.

Okay, but that is consistent with the notion that he is reflecting views, not influencing them.

It is consistent with both. Once the audience is watching his streams, he can influence their opinions.

According to you in another thread, that means it isn’t evidence.

 

[Elixir]

Are there people who want one and can get one, but don't?

Yes At least on paper. And there are even some extreme cases.
I once met a street guy in Denver. Pretty ragged, bad smelling and dirty. He was hanging out in a massive empty warehouse/garage structure in the Larimer district, then a poor area of town. Apparently he was famous in the area. He OWNED the huge building, and slept on the concrete floor on the ground level, reputedly to keep people out, which was likely required given the huge bay doors he kept open to the street. I guess it would qualify as a “home” in that it had a roof, at least a few bathrooms and probably something that could serve as a kitchen somewhere … but certainly not a home in any conventional sense. I wondered why … should have asked. I’m sure most people could live well enough on the taxes he paid on that property.