I couldn't read the article but at least agree with the title. Taxes should be 1:1 linked with spending. The xx trillion dollar deficit is IMHO unfixable without substantial, painful changes.
The thing is, in isolation, balancing the budget looks pretty easy. It's only because you have to deal with particular interest groups and a populace who has come to believe that any tax increase means they're getting shafted. I was able to balance that budget with the following changes:
1. Top one percent effective tax rate goes from 24 to 30 percent.
2. Higher income goes from 12.26 to 14.26.
3. Upper middle income goes from 7.7 to 8.7.
4. Middle income goes from 4.8 to 5.8.
5. Lower middle income goes from .1 to 1.1
6. Lower income goes from -4.1 to -3.1
7. Social payroll taxable maximum goes to 90% of taxable income.
Those changes alone, with absolutely no spending changes, balance the budget. Now, I'm not proposing that those changes are politically viable, and you can certainly fiddle with my distribution if you think something else would be fairer (I think it's fair because the rich have done much better than everyone else over the past 40 years so I think they can afford to pay more, but I also think that everyone should have to contribute something more or else you get the current problematic belief that the issue can be solved just by taxing somebody else), but I would strongly disagree if you wanted to argue that those changes would result in any substantial change in standard of living for anyone.
I think, numerically, the problem can pretty easily be solved just by taxation alone (though I think it would make sense to add some spending cuts), just not politically.
Site looked interesting, so I was just like "what would it look like to have a top tax rate like we did in the 1950s-1980s (Before Reagan dropped it)?" [1] And the hilarious thing is the propaganda it spews without any backing of data:
>At a certain point, increases in tax rates will not raise more revenue. Once someone's tax rate becomes sufficiently high, they might work less or try harder to evade taxes. Based on existing evidence, this simulation assumes that increasing this group’s tax rate beyond your current level is unlikely to raise more revenue.
And then it pretends like the maximum amount of income you can get out of the richest 1% is $203B.
This is rich people's propaganda that we've bought into by pretending that Rich people don't need this country. But that's a lie. If it were true, they would just move, instead of fighting tooth and nail for tax cuts in every single election.
Also the breakdown of spending categories and the way they're represented are pretty clearly politically motivated, and the Numbers look a little suspicious to me. They don't even align with the CBO numbers.
Another really obvious thing missing is a "Capital Gains Tax"
Which is currently pegged to like 20%, and how CEOs get all of their income. So If Capital Gains was taxed as income, I think that would at least start to make the Income tax realistic.
> Those changes alone, with absolutely no spending changes, balance the budget.
I tried out the calculator and put in all your changes, and the budget wasn't balanced, there was still a 1.4T deficit (as opposed to the current 1.9T deficit). The app only claims the budget is "sustainable" now because it assumes GDP keeps growing at the same rate (which might not be true), and if so we'll hit a 3%-of-GDP "deficit target" in 25 years. Also adjusting a negative tax rate kind of seems like it is, in fact, reducing spending (i.e. the federal government reduces the amount of tax credits it gives out). This also assumes the federal government will not introduce new programs, new spending, etc. So really all you did was reduce the deficit by .5T along with a hope and a prayer that the economy will continue to grow at the same rate for the next 25 years (while at the same time the federal government does not increase spending). I personally think it's bad to have a deficit at all and that we should work towards zero deficit and eventually surplus (yes, I know there are all sort of growth hacks and such you can do with debt, but historically politicians have succumbed to slippery slope deficit increases and so for that reason alone I think holding politicians to a zero deficit standard is best -- do it for a few generations and now there's a precedent that protects us from getting into the situation we are currently in). To me a "balanced budget" is that your spending is <= your income.
Anyway, interesting calculator app. I do see the value in raising taxes for sure, but it's not easy politically to raise taxes and it's also not easy politically to cut spending (whichever group likes the thing you cut will scream), so ultimately it might have to be a hybrid solution where democrats increase taxes without increasing spending when they are in power and republicans cut spending without decreasing taxes when they are in power. When I say that out loud though it seems like a pipe dream, sigh...
It's more likely both are true. We can afford to do more for the people, but at the same time we are over-spending. Streamlining some of these functions would be nice. One area we are vastly over-spending is highway and roadway construction, for example. Even if we can afford it, we shouldn't pay for it. There are other more politically hot topics here and both general sides of the debate have merit, but we should try to not be dogmatic about it and instead think in systems terms and long-term outcomes. When I see a city or state spending $400,000/each on units for housing homeless people, well, that's obviously a misuse of funds. That's not sustainable. We shouldn't do it even if we can afford it. When we spend $50 billion in a week of the Iran war (which I support but just as an example), well, that $50 billion could have paid off a lot of mortgages - so maybe we should or could do that instead.
Maybe start with universal healthcare and rezoning laws so Airbnb can’t sit on housing. Make public college free. Reduce military spending drastically. Force billionaires to pay a 25% tax on net worth (they’d still increase their wealth).
I don't like or valorize billionaires, I guess (I mostly don't care about them), but I don't understand what's "inhumane" here. There aren't very many billionaires. Billion dollar companies are far more salient to ordinary people than billionaires are. And, obviously, you can't fund universal health care by liquidating the billionaires!
I've never really understood why people are so het up about billionaires. The distinction between them and decimillionaires seems mostly like comic book lifestyle stuff; like, OK, they fly their pets private for visitation with their ex-spouses or whatever, I guess that's offensive aesthetically?
Far, far more damaging to ordinary people is the Faustian bargain struck between the upper middle class and the (much smaller) upper class, which redistributes vast sums of many away from working class people into the bank accounts of suburban homeowners.
(Because fundamental attribution error guarantees threads like this will devolve into abstract left vs. right valence arguments, a policy stake in the ground: I broadly favor significantly higher and more progressive taxes, starting with a reconsideration of the degree to which we favor cap gains.)
I really applaud the work McKenzie Scott is doing. A lot of billionaires play the "aw shucks if only someone would tax me" - nothing is stopping them from just donating to the government if they really thought that. We have a housing problem, why not play Sim City in real life and build houses for people or something? Personally I think it would be a blast.
Similarly though, there's nothing stopping you personally from taking $50, $100, whatever and walking over to a shelter or food bank and donating. You don't need to wait for the government to stand up a program. Lead by example like McKenzie Scott is. We donate money to local organizations - again, no barriers here.
I don't care if someone is a billionaire, though of course we should tax them "appropriately". But if you're really mad about billionaires and you want these programs, you should be giving away your own money too and there's nothing stopping you. Waiting until you get just the right program or tax the right person is a bad strategy if you really care about some of these issues.
Yeah, it's always funny to see how MMT is a perfectly acceptable way to create tax cuts and enable corporate welfare but if you suddenly want universal medicare or childcare suddenly we care about budgets or MMT is suddenly impractical.
This should actually allow for a balanced budget and still affording everything. The problem is, the USA has the best government money can buy and it wasn’t bought by the people.
Yes, the scale is different. This means that the debt problem can go on for far longer without being apparent. It can even be put off until the current slate of politicians are out of office, until they're dead of old age and beyond accountability. Scale can hide things, by making them so big your field of vision doesn't allow you to see it all at once.
Maybe... maybe... maybe... none of this builds trust when there is something that does build trust; putting revenue on the line and opening yourself to legal liability. Otherwise everything is empty and meaningless, its just PR, and nothing more.
Our Best Buy is great. Usually pretty good stock and good variety. People there seem to be pretty nice as well. Bought a laptop there a few weeks ago. The one I wanted was in stock, they had a good price and gave me a fair trade in for my old one. Wife loves the place too as she can try on all their phone cases before she buys. It’s great to have a local option so that is one of the reasons I also choose to support them.
Best Buy price matches Amazon, I get what I want same day, no need to pay a monthly fee for "free" shipping. I used to browse Amazon for reviews (hoping at least some weren't fake) then buy in the real world in person, but now that Amazon is replacing access to reviews with AI summaries (there's a login barrier to see more than the first few) there's no need to go there at all.
I have a similar experience at my local Best Buy stores. I buy most of my electronics from there because I can't trust Amazon to give me a product that isn't counterfeit or defective to some degree. In general I largely prefer to buy things in person these days than have it shipped. No more Prime.
Yes, it's the same reason that I recommend people just buy stuff from Costco if they have the item.
A buyer at Best Buy or Costco explicitly made a decision to stock the item at the store/warehouse, where shelf space is not free. If that item has a lot of returns or complaints, the store will stop selling the product. It takes up space where a better product could be, and returns waste the time of employees.
Amazon doesn't have these controls. Listing an item on Amazon is cheap and Amazon has no incentive to prune their marketplace of junk. The only controls on Amazon are user reviews which can be gamed.
Just be careful with BB when buying some products, like external hard drives. There are many stories on r/datahoarder from people buying HDDs only to plug them in and find the previous buyer has swapped out the drive, resealed it and returned it.
I stopped patronizing Best Buy when their store phone numbers started going to a corporate call center that couldn't tell me if something I was looking for was in stock at the store.
They do show stock on their website. For other things such as price matching their chat service has worked well for me and seems to be backed by real people. I can't remember the last time I tried to call in.
I've had a similar experience with the Best Buy in my area. They also seem to be really good about keeping things in stock that people actually buy (seems like a basic concept, but you would be surprised).
Also they're typically right on par with Amazon's pricing and no need to wait for it to ship, just a quick trip there and back (although they usually get me buying something I didn't go there for) >:(
NewEgg is still great if you specific "Fulfilled by newegg" or whatever magic checkbox stands for "No actually this is a product we have bought and have in our warehouse from a real company and you are paying us to sell that physical item to you from our warehouse"
Of course, that eliminates 90% of their "inventory", but I only ever wanted to buy computer products from them anyway.
The rural Best Buys kind of are terrible. “Middle America” and “Empty Nester” targeted locations really don’t give you anything other than medicore middle-of-the-line product selections. What I’d kill for one of the “Urban Trendsetter” format locations…
Yes absolutely. My local Best Buy is a depressing hollow shell. The drone section is vacant, the PC part area is now vacant (no GPUs, no RAM, no SSDs). I have visited glorious Microcenter in Dallas, which is a long way from here, and a magnitude different (better) experience.
I’ve been pretty happy with Reolink. No subscription required and uses local storage. Notifications are done through smtp which works pretty well. Mobile app is pretty solid as well.
Absolutely love Zulip. I think they are the #1 open source project out there for many reasons. Here are a few that come to mind:
1. Open source and the commitment to keep it there.
2. The continued technical excellence of the product.
3. Excellent and up-to-date documentation
4. Open to the public development effort that allows public participation (chat.zulip.org)
5. Availability of help from front line engineers and owners as well as the community.
6. Modern and organized UI with many options to tailor it to use case and environment.
7. Excellent choice of tech stack which has evolved to keep up with new technology.
8. An excellent place for aspiring developers to learn not only coding but other skills such as communication and relationship values.
Anthony Kiedis isn't headlining an event that's being put on by an expressly christian organization. He also is not closely tied to someone who's mentioned more in the Epstein Files than Harry Potter is mentioned in the Harry Potter books.
Kid Rock has some pretty infamous, explicit lyrics I won’t be pasting here. Just look it up, there are dozens of articles about this right now. It’s not rumors or something ambiguous, he is a disgusting person with some pretty awful things to say. Given TP’s christian mission/focus and constant moral panic stance, coupled with the MAGA movement’s alleged concern for minors, “he is not appropriate” is an understatement.
Unfortunately he stays somewhat relevant because he drapes himself in an American flag.
Won’t DJI’s current offerings still be available? I bought a Phantom 4 Pro 5 years ago that I use for mapping and it still does the job. I would expect that Enterprise drones would work the same way. Sure we’re not going to get the next new better faster model so in that scenario it does give time for a domestic company to engineer an offering.
They were approved by a prior administration that prioritized green energy over national security.
There are several other comments above that allege other countries have come to the same conclusion regarding offshore wind farms having a negative affect on radar.
The reasons are clearly stated and widely reported by multiple news sources: The Trump administration ordered an immediate pause on five major offshore wind projects, citing national security risks due to radar interference.
Not much on details besides a “classified study“ but sounds pretty transparent to me?
> They were approved by a prior administration that prioritized green energy over national security.
This is delusional. The US has been spending metrics fucktons of money on national security since long before Trump.
Biden, like trump, was absolutely a war monger, as almost all US presidents are. He was a center neoliberal politician who love love LOVED the military industrial complex, and it shows in all of his policy choices.
This characterization of the modern American Democrats as communist hippies is just so out of touch with reality it's not even worth humoring. It's just wrong. You're wrong.
reply