DOGE Catch-All | DOGE ledger “riddled with errors”

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Silence Dogood said:
Top 1% pay roughly 40% in income taxes and top 10% pay 75%. Maybe you don't know the definition of fair, and need a constant straw man to feed your liberal income inequality hatred.
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This you?

You said Republican tax policies overwhelmingly favor the rich. How is that possible when lower wage earners received a tax cut.

Nothing there about fair. Just math. Also, your statistics are bullshit.
 
ZenMode said:
I'd agree with that, in principle. Having outside people, who have no real understanding of government budget/spending processes, cutting employees and programs isn't good.

Maybe this will be a wake-up call for all of government, including Congress, who's involved in the continuing deficit and ever-growing debt and hasn't shown any concern about spending despite Americans clear concern about both for decades. One of the things Trump ran on was improving government efficiently and cutting costs. He announced Elon to run it before he won in November.
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Let's see what the deficit and debt look like in January 2029 before we even speculate whether this will be a "wake-up call" for anyone.
 
rodoheel said:
First of all, it is a complete strawman to suggest that I or anyone else is saying we should "ignore the waste." Not one person has suggested that and you know it. The idea that our only options are "ignore the waste" or "let DOGE proceed smashing things with a hammer" is just a false dichotomy. The way to address government spending and supposedly unhelpful government departments is to have Congress pass legislation. Congress can eliminate USAID and slash its funding. Congress can add 20 IGs to investigate waste or cut 20 IGs or repeal the act that created IGs. If there is evidence that the government is "ripping the taxpayer off" or "hiding things" (something you have provided exactly zero evidence of, just like Musk and DOGE) then Congress can address those things. What we don't need is Elon Musk gleefully firing people and disappearing whole federal agencies when he has no clue what they do, just because he did a "Ctrl+F" search for "diversity" in government agencies and decided to eliminate everything it hit on. (See them accidentally firing the people who maintain nuclear weapons as an example.) Even someone as dense as you should be able to tell why giving total power to the richest man in the world to do whatever he wants in the federal government, which he does not understand at all, is a "cure" far worse than whatever disease you think you've identified.

As for "no threads on govt fraud waste and abuse" - give me a break. It's a topic we have been discussing CONSTANTLY over the last few months. You just showed up days ago and want to lecture us on what we are or aren't talking about?
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Ok, that's a reasonable take, the problem is if our govt was serious about anything we wouldn't be in the mess we're in. I gave a Social Security improper payment example earlier in the billions. That should be eye opening. Elon doesn't have total power, thats fabricated. In the private sector and in sports firing individuals happens and no one bats an eye. In govt the sky is falling and govt won't function correctly. Why do you guys clamor to love big brother so much? Its odd.
 
superrific said:
This you?

You said Republican tax policies overwhelmingly favor the rich. How is that possible when lower wage earners received a tax cut.

Nothing there about fair. Just math. Also, your statistics are bullshit.
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www.ntu.org

Who Pays Income Taxes?

(PDF) updated December 2024 Taxes will dominate Congress’s agenda in 2025 as lawmakers confront the impending expiration of key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). These expirations will spark intense debate over the future of the tax code, and will undoubtedly feature...
www.ntu.org www.ntu.org

In 1980, the top marginal income tax rate was 70%, and the wealthiest 1% of earners paid 19% of all federal income taxes. Over the decades, their share of the income tax burden has consistently grown, even as top marginal tax rates were reduced significantly. At the same time, the tax share of the bottom half of earners has sharply declined—from 7% in 1980 to just 2.96% in 2022.

The newest data reveals that the top 1% of earners, defined as those with incomes over $663,164, paid nearly 40.43% of all income taxes—marking a significant drop from the previous tax year, as the economy improved in the wake of the pandemic and economic shutdown. This was a drop of 5 points (12% lower) than in 2021 when the top 1% paid nearly 46% of all income taxes. Similar to prior years of data, the amount of taxes paid by this percentile is nearly twice as much as its share of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), underscoring the progressive nature of the tax system.
The top 10% of earners bore responsibility for 76% of all income taxes paid, and the top 25% paid 89% of all income taxes. Altogether, the top 50% of filers earned 90% of all income and were responsible for 98% of all income taxes paid in 2021.

The other half of earners, those with incomes below $46,637, collectively paid 2.3% of all income taxes in 2021.
 
lawtig02 said:
Let's see what the deficit and debt look like in January 2029 before we even speculate whether this will be a "wake-up call" for anyone.
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According to Google, the debt was $36.22 trillion on Feb 14th.

This post has been bookmarked for follow up.
 
ZenMode said:
I'd agree with that, in principle. Having outside people, who have no real understanding of government budget/spending processes, cutting employees and programs isn't good.

Maybe this will be a wake-up call for all of government, including Congress, who's involved in the continuing deficit and ever-growing debt and hasn't shown any concern about spending despite Americans clear concern about both for decades. One of the things Trump ran on was improving government efficiently and cutting costs. He announced Elon to run it before he won in November.
Click to expand...
A wake-up call for Congress? Surely you're not serious. Congress does not have any institutional will of its own; it has the individual wills of the people serving in it which are widely diverging and often diametrically opposed. Slightly more than half of the members of Congress are more than happy for the President to take the heat for making cuts so they don't have to risk their own reputations and electoral prospects to do it. (And some of them are conservative enough that they're perfectly happy for Trump to act like a king anyway - as long as they agree with the things he's doing.) As I've argued in another thread, if you want to change the incentives for Congress, you have to get rid of the current version of the filibuster, which requires you to have a super-majority to pass any legislation and has encouraged the growth of inertia and inaction in Congress. It is simply politically easier for Congress to do nothing than to do anything thanks to the perverse incentives that the current filibuster provides.

I do think, and have said for months, that our best hope for the near-term is for Trump to break things so badly and so quickly that his administration becomes super unpopular before it's really had time to complete the radical Project 2025 overhaul of government it contemplates. But in the long term nothing is going to be fixed unless and until we can get Congress back to a place where it actually has incentive to pass legislation. That incentive does not exist right now, because the silent, pro forma filibuster insulates any individual congresspeople from the electoral consequences of blocking legislation.
 
Silence Dogood said:
www.ntu.org

Who Pays Income Taxes?

(PDF) updated December 2024 Taxes will dominate Congress’s agenda in 2025 as lawmakers confront the impending expiration of key provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA). These expirations will spark intense debate over the future of the tax code, and will undoubtedly feature...
www.ntu.org www.ntu.org

In 1980, the top marginal income tax rate was 70%, and the wealthiest 1% of earners paid 19% of all federal income taxes. Over the decades, their share of the income tax burden has consistently grown, even as top marginal tax rates were reduced significantly. At the same time, the tax share of the bottom half of earners has sharply declined—from 7% in 1980 to just 2.96% in 2022.

The newest data reveals that the top 1% of earners, defined as those with incomes over $663,164, paid nearly 40.43% of all income taxes—marking a significant drop from the previous tax year, as the economy improved in the wake of the pandemic and economic shutdown. This was a drop of 5 points (12% lower) than in 2021 when the top 1% paid nearly 46% of all income taxes. Similar to prior years of data, the amount of taxes paid by this percentile is nearly twice as much as its share of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), underscoring the progressive nature of the tax system.
The top 10% of earners bore responsibility for 76% of all income taxes paid, and the top 25% paid 89% of all income taxes. Altogether, the top 50% of filers earned 90% of all income and were responsible for 98% of all income taxes paid in 2021.

The other half of earners, those with incomes below $46,637, collectively paid 2.3% of all income taxes in 2021.
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Hey dingus: the reason the share of taxes paid by the top earners has increased even while the top rates have decreased IS BECAUSE THE INCOMES OF THE TOP EARNERS HAVE DRAMATICALLY INCREASED DURING THAT TIME. The top earners now earn far more proportionally compared to the bottom earners (whose wages have stagnated).

You can't seriously be this obtuse.
 
rodoheel said:
Hey dingus: the reason the share of taxes paid by the top earners has increased even while the top rates have decreased IS BECAUSE THE INCOMES OF THE TOP EARNERS HAVE DRAMATICALLY INCREASED DURING THAT TIME. The top earners now earn far more proportionally compared to the bottom earners (whose wages have stagnated).

You can't seriously be this obtuse.
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So you would agree that as you make more money the govt is taking more?
 
Silence Dogood said:
So you would agree that as you make more money the govt is taking more?
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Buddy who is trying to oversimplify things now? The top 1%'s absolute total tax payments have risen along with their incomes while their effective tax rate has stayed the same or even decreased, even with the top marginal rates steadily decreasing. In other words, both their incomes and tax payments have gone up, but their incomes have risen at a much higher rate than their tax payments.
 
farce© said:
No. A taxpayer making $650K pays the same rate as someone making $100 million. Our tax rates are woefully inadequately progressive.
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Is that true?

Jesus...I never really thought of it in those terms before. That's effing criminal.
 
Silence Dogood said:
In 1980, the top marginal income tax rate was 70%, and the wealthiest 1% of earners paid 19% of all federal income taxes. Over the decades, their share of the income tax burden has consistently grown, even as top marginal tax rates were reduced significantly. At the same time, the tax share of the bottom half of earners has sharply declined—from 7% in 1980 to just 2.96% in 2022.

The newest data reveals that the top 1% of earners, defined as those with incomes over $663,164, paid nearly 40.43% of all income taxes—marking a significant drop from the previous tax year, as the economy improved in the wake of the pandemic and economic shutdown. This was a drop of 5 points (12% lower) than in 2021 when the top 1% paid nearly 46% of all income taxes. Similar to prior years of data, the amount of taxes paid by this percentile is nearly twice as much as its share of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), underscoring the progressive nature of the tax system.
The top 10% of earners bore responsibility for 76% of all income taxes paid, and the top 25% paid 89% of all income taxes. Altogether, the top 50% of filers earned 90% of all income and were responsible for 98% of all income taxes paid in 2021.

The other half of earners, those with incomes below $46,637, collectively paid 2.3% of all income taxes in 2021.
Click to expand...
That’s because income was much more fairly distributed back then.
 
rodoheel said:
A wake-up call for Congress? Surely you're not serious. Congress does not have any institutional will of its own; it has the individual wills of the people serving in it which are widely diverging and often diametrically opposed. Slightly more than half of the members of Congress are more than happy for the President to take the heat for making cuts so they don't have to risk their own reputations and electoral prospects to do it. (And some of them are conservative enough that they're perfectly happy for Trump to act like a king anyway - as long as they agree with the things he's doing.) As I've argued in another thread, if you want to change the incentives for Congress, you have to get rid of the current version of the filibuster, which requires you to have a super-majority to pass any legislation and has encouraged the growth of inertia and inaction in Congress. It is simply politically easier for Congress to do nothing than to do anything thanks to the perverse incentives that the current filibuster provides.

I do think, and have said for months, that our best hope for the near-term is for Trump to break things so badly and so quickly that his administration becomes super unpopular before it's really had time to complete the radical Project 2025 overhaul of government it contemplates. But in the long term nothing is going to be fixed unless and until we can get Congress back to a place where it actually has incentive to pass legislation. That incentive does not exist right now, because the silent, pro forma filibuster insulates any individual congresspeople from the electoral consequences of blocking legislation.
Click to expand...
I like the filibuster. It forces the two sides to have to agree and cooperate before passing legislation. The last thing I want is for one party to have unilateral control.
 
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