[patwolfe]

I'd say the current biggest problem is that the highest earners simply do not pay much in taxes through loopholes and avoidance, not that taxes need to be increased across the board.

EDIT: the_gastropod's comment also under this parent is a great short summary of this issue. I second their recommendation of "Capital in the 21st Century"

[DamnYuppie]

Are you talking about on a percentage of their income or as a percentage of the total amount of taxes paid? I believe the top 10% pay essentially 90% of all non sales taxes in US.

[thoughtstheseus]

By percentage of wealth.

[fat_pikachu]

The "loopholes" are there for a reason. They allow the government to indirectly further their policy goals without much effort e.g. tax avoidance programs for real estate investors to encourage the building of more housing, tax credits for parents to encourage people to have more children, credits for electric vehicles to encourage the development of renewables, etc.

[tengbretson]

What do you want to do with their money though?

[almost_usual]

What are you suggesting? That poor people don’t need anything right now? Literally half the country can’t afford rent or housing?

[tengbretson]

What does that have to do with taxing the wealthy though? Do you think the $3.5 trillion spent on covid relief has any relationship whatsoever with tax revenue?

[tick_tock_tick]

Total billionaire net-worth in the USA is $4 trillion so 1 covid relief would fully tap them out. People are horrible at reasoning about large numbers they think these people have real money compared to the government.

[staticman2]

Politicians are cheap to bribe with campaign contributions and political adds and that money is enough to ensure the government will do a poor job of serving the people.

[starpilot]

Use it to live? Money lets you afford healthcare. Without that, you die. Dying is not equal to living.

[shadowgovt]

It would cost approximately $216 million to do full lead remediation in Flint, Michigan.

That's about 1.1% of the net worth of Jeff Bezos.

I indicate this not to imply that Jeff Bezos should be solely responsible for fixing the Flint water supply, but rather to indicate that the resources are there, the problems are there, and what we lack is the will to move resources to fix public problems (be that via taxation or charity). Even problems we know will carry a larger cost moving forward... Flint is a town with a population of nearly 100,000, and a high-lead environment can basically guarantee higher costs in education, health problem remediation, and possibly crime.

[tick_tock_tick]

It also points out how little money Bezos really has compared to the cost of running the country. Assuming he could get the current market price for all his Amazon shares (impossible) he could fix 100 decently sized problems in the country and be completely broke after. There are way more than 100 decently sized problem.