Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)

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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.
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.
 
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.
So you would agree that as you make more money the govt is taking more?
 
Over the decades, their share of the income tax burden has consistently grown, even as top marginal tax rates were reduced significantly.

Yea, that's because the top 1% have gone from owning a couple million dollars to a couple billion dollars.
 
federal income taxes.
Ah, the classic dishonesty: ignore social security taxes on income because they are labeled differently.

Look, if you're going to exclude SS taxes from "income taxed" then you have to exclude SS payments and liabilities from the debt/deficit.
 
So you would agree that as you make more money the govt is taking more?
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.
 
No. A taxpayer making $650K pays the same rate as someone making $100 million. Our tax rates are woefully inadequately progressive.

Is that true?

Jesus...I never really thought of it in those terms before. That's effing criminal.
 
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.
That’s because income was much more fairly distributed back then.
 
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.
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.
 
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.
That is not remotely what the filibuster does in practice and I find it hard to believe that anyone could look at how its use has progressed over the last 50 years and come to that conclusion. All the filibuster does is make it extremely difficult to get anything productive done, and create a lack of accountability for the people who exercise it given that it can be exercised silently and in a pro forma manner. It doesn't encourage bipartisan cooperation; it discourages it by giving any minority with at least 40 votes the ability to completely block legislation by the majority.

If you think 60 votes should be required to pass legislation, propose an amendment to the constitution to change it. But having a situation where the constitutional provision that a simple majority can pass legislation in the Senate is overriden by a Senate procedural rule that has no Constitutional basis is absurd. It has played a large role in making Congress into the virtually non-functioning body it is today, and in creating the conditions we see today where people will turn to an authoritarian president to effectively legislate without Congress because Congress has no real incentive or ability to pass legislation.
 
Individuals on the higher end of income are paying more than those on the lower end by a wide margin.
No shit Sherlock. This would be true even if we had a completely flat tax system, as opposed to a purportedly progressive system. No one can tell what point you're trying to make with this elementary school-level observation.
 
I tell you what, man. May all of us have the unbridled confidence of a tater tot who wants to come to the ZZLP and try to pretend to be more knowledgeable on law and economics than a whole bunch of people who literally study, practice, and teach…law and economics. Every time I start to feel like I’m the dullest intellectual crayon in the box in this community, somebody like this dude comes along and makes me look like I belong in Mensa.
 
No shit Sherlock. This would be true even if we had a completely flat tax system, as opposed to a purportedly progressive system. No one can tell what point you're trying to make with this elementary school-level observation.
How are Republican tax cuts benefitting the rich based on the numbers I gave? Why is this so hard for you guys? Trump also cut taxes on individuals on the lower end, something that keeps getting ignored.
 
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.
Pretty much anything Musk or Trump claims is fabrication.

I have some hurricane inundated swampland on Florida to sell!


Elon is unelected, unappointed, unconfirmed, undemocratic, and unethical. Regardless of what Pres. Musk is called, we all know the facts on the ground. He's driving the DOGE train... straight to neo-nazi HQR in Germany and Moscow.
 
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