President Biden

[Guisslapp]

Never.

Government has NO RIGHT to have a accounting of what you own or the value thereof. With idiots like we have in government now, just imagine how such information could be abused (much like I don't want them to have my DNA or medical information either..they are morons that cannot be trusted with anything).

How about a simple transaction tax, or value added tax, with luxury items being taxed at a higher rate than normal stuff like most food and clothing. I would be for eliminating the income tax completely. It's just counterproductive. It discourages work and productivity.

And like d80 said, probably a good idea to stop spending on STUPID things (things that the person that actually worked for the money would consider a poor use of resources).

Back of the envelope calculation says you will need AT LEAST an average of 21% VAT on top of sales tax to make up for the hole of eliminating income tax. Hard to implement that without making it really regressive, given the percent of spending that is on consumer staples.

[DawgyNWindow]

Back of the envelope calculation says you will need AT LEAST an average of 21% VAT on top of sales tax to make up for the hole of eliminating income tax. Hard to implement that without making it really regressive, given the percent of spending that is on consumer staples.

Back of the envelope says GDP is 21 trillion and 2 trillion is collected in payroll taxes. I am not getting 21% out of that calculation at all.

Did you miss my point about taxing most staples less and luxury items more?

[TYLERTECHSAS]

Truthfully, combined with REAL spending cuts (not just reductions in annual increases), a wealth tax is the only way to start to get a handle on the national debt. That is, if we are serious about actually doing something about the debt. Where would that line be drawn, such as $10 million+, $5 million+, $3 million+ I don't know, but combined with real spending cuts it would be relatively easy to determine that mark. Well, that is based on the desired timetable, such as we want to retire the debt in 10 years, 20 years, whatever...

U.S. National Debt Clock : Real Time (usdebtclock.org)

Unfortunately the debt has grown so large, approaching $28 trillion, it would take some serious spending cuts, tax increases, and time, lots of time!

Yes and that type of spending cuts will never happen; especially in a uber socialist Adm.

[Guisslapp]

Back of the envelope says GDP is 21 trillion and 2 trillion is collected in payroll taxes. I am not getting 21% out of that calculation at all.

Did you miss my point about taxing most staples less and luxury items more?

Keep doing the math. US personal consumption is 14 trillion. Total income tax revenue is 3 trillion if you both income tax and payroll tax (more if you include corporate). To make 3 trillion off 14 trillion in consumption, that becomes...

That is average VAT of 21% on both discretionary and non-discretionary. The VAT would obviously have to be much higher on discretionary to reduce the VAT on non-discretionary/staples items. Otherwise the middle class and lower class will be paying a higher effective tax rate.

People that make minimum wage basically pay no income tax today. In your world, their struggle would be much greater.

[DawgyNWindow]

Keep doing the math. US personal consumption is 14 trillion. Total income tax revenue is 3 trillion if you both income tax and payroll tax (more if you include corporate). To make 3 trillion off 14 trillion in consumption, that becomes...

That is average VAT of 21% on both discretionary and non-discretionary. The VAT would obviously have to be much higher on discretionary to reduce the VAT on non-discretionary/staples items. Otherwise the middle class and lower class will be paying a higher effective tax rate.

People that make minimum wage basically pay no income tax today. In your world, their struggle would be much greater.

Payroll taxes are something else entirely, and besides they are put away into the Al Gore lockbox every month. That's not what I'm speaking about.

I noticed you included payroll taxes when you thought it proved your point (which it didn't) then excluded them when you said minimum wage folks pay no income tax. You like mixing your data, don't you? Good thing big data analytics are just a hobby for you.

Yes, for folks like you punishing productivity probably seems like a great idea.

[Guisslapp]

Payroll taxes are something else entirely, and besides they are put away into the Al Gore lockbox every month. That's not what I'm speaking about.

I noticed you included payroll taxes when you thought it proved your point (which it didn't) then excluded them when you said minimum wage folks pay no income tax. You like mixing your data, don't you? Good thing big data analytics are just a hobby for you.

Yes, for folks like you punishing productivity probably seems like a great idea.

I told you it was back of the envelope. Hell, I estimated it in my head while on the stationary bike (without writing anything down) to get a ballpark estimate of what level of tax we were talking about. Certainly nothing as sophisticated as analytics. But there is also a close to 1 trillion dollar hole in tax revenues thanks to Trump tax cuts (and payroll taxes make up significantly less than half of the combined payroll and income tax revenue) so you can add that 1 trillion back in and get about the same answer.

My point still stands. A big VAT, and unless it is zero for non-discretionary (and thus massively larger for non discretionary), the vast majority of middle class will see much higher tax rates.

[dawg80]

Biden signs ban of private ownership/management of prisons. We knew this was coming as my daughter, and about 35 others, had been laid off a couple weeks ago in anticipation of this. Some of you may remember the hoops we had to jump through just to get her hired given her Russian birth. It's under the umbrella of Homeland Security, at least my daughter's position was.

Biden and the Dems are job killers...

[FriscoDawg]

Jen "Um" Psycho can't even stand the heat of softball questions in news briefings. So now only pre-approved questions from reporters are allowed.

Transparency? It gets more ridiculous by the hour.

[Guisslapp]

At least we get briefings again...

[dawg80]

At least we get briefings again...

So says Joseph Goebbels...

[FriscoDog]

Biden is bending the knee to his China overlords as expected. One of the EO's he signed was to ban the term "China Virus" in government speech, emails, etc. because it was xenophobic and not called for. However all is not lost, I did hear Biden use the term "UK Strain" and "South African" strain recently, so I assume that those terms are still acceptable to use.

[PawDawg]

Biden is bending the knee to his China overlords as expected. One of the EO's he signed was to ban the term "China Virus" in government speech, emails, etc. because it was xenophobic and not called for. However all is not lost, I did hear Biden use the term "UK Strain" and "South African" strain recently, so I assume that those terms are still acceptable to use.

What a bunch of idiots.

[techman05]

Biden is bending the knee to his China overlords as expected. One of the EO's he signed was to ban the term "China Virus" in government speech, emails, etc. because it was xenophobic and not called for. However all is not lost, I did hear Biden use the term "UK Strain" and "South African" strain recently, so I assume that those terms are still acceptable to use.

All they have to do is show me the virus came from a lab inside a different country and I’ll stop referring to it as the China virus.

[Guisslapp]

All they have to do is show me the virus came from a lab inside a different country and I’ll stop referring to it as the China virus.

It wasn’t made in a lab. Scientists know this already.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sci...in-the-lab/amp

[FriscoDog]

It wasn’t made in a lab. Scientists know this already.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sci...in-the-lab/amp

ok.. give you that.. but it didn't originate in Topeka Kansas, or Milan Italy... it was Wuhan China..