Maybe maybe not, perhaps their salaries were adjusted to account for that. What seems more egregious to me is the idea that billionaires can milk the system such that they pay ZERO taxes while working Americans could never deduct their way to zero taxes.
Furthermore, all Americans should be contributing tax dollars to finance the commons.
Well that’s a lie. About 48% of the country has 0 or a net negative tax liability while those evil rich people you despise so much are paying about 75% of the total tax burden.
We should raise taxes on politicians.
Definitely on Trump who brags about paying NONE…
No he doesn’t. …
IMO, first world countries shouldn’t be structured in such a way that straps a graduate with such burdensome debt to begin with.
Right, put that burden on the working man/woman by shifting it to their taxes.
Brilliant!
This part I can agree with. The (higher) education system in America is structured wrongly and needlessly strapping graduates with burdensome debt.
We aren’t structured that way.
Rather, because our people abhor delayed gratification they put themselves in these situations.
Well, it’s on them if they do.
The move to consumerism and an advertising rather than need driven market place has a lot to do with that.
My fruit trees are having an insane year and I’ve got bushels of fruit falling off and rotting on the ground because people are too lazy to come and pick it for free.
They’ll spend their last dollar on the newest, coolest whatever then bitch because their food stamps ran out before the end of the month but they won’t come and pick their own food even when it’s given for free.
Wealth and leisure when combined with bad social theory can make proverbial square watermelon societies.
They cost a lot for people who have lost the common sense to shop for value.
Like I recently wrote elsewhere is response to China’s lower per capita GDP: it’s cheaper/easier to sustain socialism through a little capitalism when your people aren’t demanding than it is to sustain any amount of socialism among folks who’ve known the good life that capitalism has given America … which is proving to be irrationally crazy spendthrift.
Right, I know, and there are those that are working on that.
It is argued that roads and bridges, airports and libraries, fire and rescue, hospitals and schools, reservoirs and water treatment facilities and the HOSTS of other social institutions, are performed via the collective, contributing to the pot via taxes, is how the government meets its mandate to provide for the general welfare…some would like to see higher education included in that.
It’s not black and white. The United States is and has been a country who’s economy is capitalist based, and who’s government has been a continually evolving socialist state. Taxes and government services were of scant little in 1789, as people demanded increasing social services, taxes increased accordingly. Personally, I prefer the comforts and luxuries of life today when compared to that if colonial life and do not begrudge my tax bill. Of course as anyone else, it would be really nice to eradicate waste fraud and abuse, but I suppose human nature being as it is, that will never happen…
Notice the Constitution does not say the general welfare of the people of the United States, nor the general welfare of the States, but of the United States.
Clearly your argument is for expanded government and government control vs. The real meaning.
It means that Congress can collect taxes to pay the debts of the federal government, not those of the states. It means Congress can collect taxes to pay for the defense of the nation as a whole, not the defense of individual states. And most importantly, it means Congress can collect taxes to pay for the general welfare of the United States, not the people or the individual states.
But that bursts the bubble of the progressives that government is everything.
It always is one way or another. You think that the social services that you enjoy would be cheaper for you if it was all privatized…? Would you prefer that every road that you drive on after leaving your gate were to be toll roads.
It’s a good thing that the United States has evolved as it has socially, and it will continue despite the fringe right opposition to it. Health care and higher education WILL join the fray, it’s only a matter of time…
Excellent point. The biggest bullshit about college is the general ed requirement all over again. The fact is that American students already spent 13 years of doing general education requirements from K to 12th grade. It is all just additional waste of time and money for the consumer and simply an additional means for colleges to make money.
Capitalism at its finest…
Pretty simplistic view; the ‘right wing’ is probably a bit smaller than the ‘left wing’ - but that’s who gets the press. People who lean more to the right resent the pandering by Dems. to keep people dependent and angry, to encourage identity politics. No one objects to taxation for roads, and other essential infrastructure, but they resent paying perfectly able-bodied people to ‘collex a check’ instead of working. They resent that while they pay the taxes, Dem. pols encourage class hatred and resentment of success. They are less than thrilled at subsidizing squander- of time, money (not so much energy) on slackers bonging through six lazy years for degrees that are of zero benefit to society (Ethnic Studies, LGWTF Studies etc. etc. etc.). That does not make them fringe, it makes them adults.
Yes, higher Ed. healthcare, etc. will all take their turns as a ‘movement not a moment’ momentary movement.
The only people who will be effectively barred from decision making will be those who actually pay the bills. But those are the ones Dems. hate anyway.
But I didn’t speak to the ‘right wing’ which would be all encompassing of the right. I said the fringe right, which is in the category of the fringe left, and are the two most vocal if least representative of Americans.
Okay, but people usually refer to the fringe as the right or left ‘wing’; most voters are more centrist, hence not typically labeled with the ‘wing’ moniker.