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by somewhat_drunk 666 days ago
Is money tantamount to power?

Is the centralization of power bad?

If yes to both, then the centralization of money is bad.

You have no argument against this. The best you can do is to attempt to refute the notion that money is tantamount to power, which will be laughable. But please do try.
1 comments
logicchains 666 days ago
Expropriation of wealth from the rich just centralises it more by giving it to the government (and in particular whoever is in charge of the government), as happened with every single communist revolution.
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amrocha 666 days ago
The government controls the supply of money, they don’t need anyone’s money they already have complete monetary power.

Taxes don’t fund the government. All of the money the government collects via taxes is written off in a spreadsheet and disappears. The government then creates money, however much money it wants to, in order to fund its activities.

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petersellers 666 days ago
No? We aren't a communist country, so bringing up communist revolutions is irrelevant here.

We used to tax the rich much more than we do now, and government bureaucrats were not obscenely wealthy then as you seem to be implying.

Also, the US government spends more money than it accrues every year, so there isn't any consolidation of money happening in the government (nor will there be if taxes go up).

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AnthonyMouse 666 days ago
> We used to tax the rich much more than we do now, and government bureaucrats were not obscenely wealthy then as you seem to be implying.

This is inaccurate. We used to have higher tax rates on paper but nobody actually paid them because the tax code of the time had many enormous loopholes that have since been closed, which happened at the same time as the rates were lowered. Real government revenue per capita has been increasing over time.

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petersellers 666 days ago
It's not inaccurate. While it is true that they didn't pay the rates on paper, their effective rate was still significantly higher than it is today (even with all the loopholes).
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AnthonyMouse 666 days ago
It wasn't. Federal receipts as a percent of GDP have been basically flat since the end of WWII:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

Before that the rate was significantly lower.

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petersellers 665 days ago
Federal Receipts as a percent of GDP doesn't address my point whatsoever.

GDP is not income. Federal receipts aggregated across all tax brackets provides zero information about what the highest tax bracket paid.

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00_hum 666 days ago
false. effective tax rate was lower not higher
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petersellers 666 days ago
That is false, at least for the top tax bracket (which is what I'm referring to).

Even the Tax Foundation, which is a biased source that is anti-tax in general states that the effective rate for the top bracket was 6% higher then than it is today (https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/taxes-on-the-rich...)

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somewhat_drunk 666 days ago
I absolutely agree that we should not give the Executive any more power.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/dang...

So... Harris 2024, yes?

Snark aside, as long as democracy functions, all power ceded to the government is ceded willingly by a majority of the people.

That is, by definition, the people exercising their collective will, which is to say it is the decentralization of power.

And please, we are nowhere near communism in the USA. We aren't even approaching socialism, despite what your bogeyman solicitors are shouting at you.

Do better.

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