The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso. The tough pill to swallow, if we are to follow in e.g. Sweden's footsteps, is that you need to tax the middle class a lot more if you want the government to provide more services.

By the way, this whole discussion completely ignores that the country is BROKE. Why are we contemplating building a new patio and switching to Whole Foods when we're not even on pace to pay off the house??

1: https://manhattan.institute/article/correcting-the-top-10-ta...

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munificent 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> The US tax system is substantially more progressive than you might think.¹ It seems unwise to make it even moreso.

I disagree, and I don't think linking to a conservative think tank a particularly compelling counterargument.

My metric for whether a tax system is progressive enough is pretty simple: is inequality high and getting higher? Then the tax system should be more progressive.

Some amount of inequality is healthy. The top 10% owning 80% of all wealth in the US is not.

> By the way, this whole discussion completely ignores that the country is BROKE.

Good point! It would be really great if the government wasn't funneling billions into the coffers of defense companies by starting nonsense wars.

Cutting taxes on the wealthy and corporations and going into greater debt for it is a two-handed gift to the rich: they pay less taxes and they make money directly from the government by being paid interest when they loan money to the government.

	▲	gottorf 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I don't think linking to a conservative think tank a particularly compelling counterargument Do you only ingest ideas from places that you're already inclined to believe? How do you get challenges to your beliefs? > is inequality high and getting higher? Then the tax system should be more progressive. > Some amount of inequality is healthy. What amount of inequality is just right, then? On one hand you suggest that we should redistribute to lower inequality, but on the other you seem to see some kind of beneficial role, or at least a neutral role, of inequality in a society. > The top 10% owning 80% of all wealth in the US is not. Countries as diverse as Sweden, the Philippines, and Nigeria all have worse inequality in wealth than the US[0]. On the other end, countries like Iceland, Myanmar, and Turkmenistan have similarly low wealth inequality. I might posit that wealth inequality doesn't even make the top 10 of what makes a health society that's nice to live in. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_we...
	▲	akramachamarei 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I shouldn't have to tell you that "but it's a conservative think tank" is merely ad hominem. If you think Jessica Riedl is misrepresenting the facts, I and many others would appreciate your elaborating. I'm afraid you haven't even read it. Nonetheless, our ideas about social justice clearly differ. You abhor inequality in itself, I abhor poverty. So perhaps it won't make sense to argue the facts. I do want to point out also that while it would certainly be good to eliminate unnecessary "defense" spend, it won't be close to enough. By far the biggest sources of deficit are entitlements: social security, Medicare, Medicaid. No one seriously proposes cutting taxes on the wealthy. It might be nice for the sake of fairness (you'd disagree) but unfortunately we will need a painful period of increased tax on everyone paired with serious cost-cutting if we intend to balance the budget... without just printing more dollars, which is basically another tax.

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downrightmike 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Debt is 120% GDP