Put another way if your tax rate is 33% and you had to pay the government first.

Then every dollar you earn goes to the government until May 1.

In this scenario if you have to pay govt interest expense first then almost every dollar earned in January would go to paying the debt.

We are spending almost an entire month of everyone’s salary, not on providing anything of value but merely on paying for previous overspending.

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UncleMeat 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

In order to pay an effective federal tax rate of 33% you'd need to be making like seven figures and do nothing to reduce your taxable income.

	▲	pclowes 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That’s not the point the point is to illustrate that right now for every tax payer 20% of every dollar collected is spent on interest. Not even on the principal just on the interest expense.

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jeffbee 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

This is such a Boomer way of looking at this. First of all, hardly anyone pays that much. Secondly, the more correct way of viewing such a situation is that you make a shitload of money.

	▲	pclowes 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		1. I am not a boomer. 2. Do you think an ageist ad hominem improves your argument? 3. What even is your argument? That in this contrived hypothetical the person in question is making a “shitload” and that somehow invalidates that 20% of EVERY tax dollar collected is used to just pay interest on debt (not even principal, just interest)