thoughtcrimeboss on Warpcast

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thoughtcrimeboss

@thoughtcrimeboss

The United States owes trillions in debt yet if any spending is cut lately it gets criticized by liberals, so I'm curious what programs are liberals OK with cutting spending on? If we cut everything liberals are OK with cutting, how much would it add up to? Or is the liberal solution to just raise taxes on the rich and not cut anything? Is there any kind of liberal roadmap to an actual balanced budget?

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MattwithouttheT 🎩

I agree that there is a lot of waste in the system that should be assessed and removed, but I think the bigger issue is revenue. The US ranks 16th out of the 20th wealthiest countries in spending relative to GDP. The solution is to raise income taxes rates, specifically on corporation and the rich. If these parties are not going to pay their employees a living wage and benefits, then they should be providing the tax revenue necessary to fund the various social welfare programs that are necessary because of it, not everyday Americans like you and me. But also, unleash DOGE on the Pentagon/defense spending. That's where the big dollars are; and that's where the greatest waste likely is.

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So I heard something the other day that made me go hmmmm. That is that taxes aren't mainly about revenue at all, if it was solely about revenue the tax code would be a few pages long. Instead it's more about control and using the tax code for incentivizing or disincentivizing certain behaviors through people's almost universal desire to pay less taxes. Do you think he was right or wrong about that? After all, when the United States abuses it's position as the controller of the world's reserve currency to print money out of thin air whenever it wants to (if it wasn't the reserve currency this level of money printing would probably have caused hyper inflation years ago), then how much does tax revenue even really matter to the State when it has access to infinite dollars?

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MattwithouttheT 🎩

I still think the primary purpose of taxes is revenue, but absolutely, policymakers use it as a tool to shape economic and social behavior. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t raise taxes on the rich, who are the exploiting their workers and passing the costs on to the rest of us. The problem is money equals influence, and as long as there is money in politics, the rich will lobby their way out of paying more.

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Many rich people do exploit workers, but not all, but what nobody seems to talk about is how the government is also exploiting workers through taxation. Workers would get quite a pay raise if they weren't working 1/3 of their life for the state. All taxpayers are just free range slaves owned by the government. The huge difference being that you can always quit your job and find a better one or start your own business (although this is harder than it should be such as when the state requires onerous licensing and regulatory requirements for almost everything from cutting hair to selling lemonade).You can't quit your country nearly as easily, plus you don't get threatened or imprisoned if you quit your job, you will if you stop paying your taxes. Also the elites wouldn't be able to shield their liability through the corporate structure if it wasn't for the state enabling it. I feel as if the state wants to direct people's anger towards corporations and away from the state which remains the root of the problem.

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MattwithouttheT 🎩

I still believe the primary purpose of taxes is to generate revenue for the government to fund public services and infrastructure - things like national defense, education, healthcare, and social programs. Sure, you could privatize everything, but if you think people’s quality of life, stability and growth prospects are bad now, I’d suggest you look at the history of Somalia, Libya, Afghanistan (at various points in time), the post-collapse Soviet Union. These should all serve as cautionary tales. I think what we can agree on is that the system is broken. I agree that the state has enabled corporations and the uber rich to shield themselves from liability. And that’s the biggest problem, imo. I also agree that people should be directing as much anger if not more towards the government for enabling this and not doing anything meaningful to change it.

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