[adventured]

Then why is there such a gigantic welfare state for the poor in the US?

Why do the top 50% fund nearly all of the government (97% of all taxes)? The top 25% pay around 90% of all income taxes. Why does the US have an aggressively progressive taxation system if it's so utopian for the rich? That's quite obviously not how the rich would choose to arrange things at all. The top 1% take in 26% of income and pay 44% of all income taxes. The top 1% pay the highest average tax rate of any group (26%), over double the median figure.

Medicaid + SS disability + all state and local healthcare programs cost over a trillion dollars per year and are free for the poorest 1/4.

The US Govt alone (not including local or state) spent $200 billion on all of its food assistance programs in 2022.

These programs go toward people who contribute almost nothing in taxes.

[triceratops]

> The top 25% pay around 90% of all income taxes

As one of the top 25%, that doesn't automatically make it unfair. What is their total share of earned income? How much of the wealth do they hold?

> These programs go toward people who contribute almost nothing in taxes.

Because they make almost no money. If you want people to pay more income tax, you need to start paying them more.

[rbanffy]

> Then why is there such a gigantic welfare state for the poor in the US?

And, yet, you can't even ensure decent free healthcare to everyone (even if limited to those who can't pay).

> These programs go toward people who contribute almost nothing in taxes.

Like Jeff Bezos?

[ceejayoz]

> Why do the top 50% fund nearly all of the government (97% of all taxes)?

That's a flat out lie - that's not "all taxes", that's only one tax - Federal income. That's only about half what the IRS takes in (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/18/who-pays-...), and then there's stuff like state, local, and non-IRS taxes like gasoline.

> The top 25% pay around 90% of all income taxes.

Guess what percentage of the wealth they hoover up.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distr...

The top 0.1% holds 1.76T in wealth; the bottom 50% holds 0.71T. The top 10% hold more wealth than the remaining 90%.

[amanaplanacanal]

Notice the rich keep getting richer though. Level of taxation doesn't mean much, look at the actual outcome.

[rbanffy]

> Notice the rich keep getting richer though.

A solid indication the level of taxation for that bracket is too low. Maybe it needs to add brackets up to the trillions, because there is a world of difference between 1M, 100M, 1B and, soon, 1T of net worth.

Remember - if you can't control money's political power, you need to control money itself, or the wealthy will have political power without the backing of votes.

[FooBarBizBazz]

You're looking at income quantiles, not wealth quantiles. It's misleading. Rich people don't earn salary.

A startup CEO probably gets a salary of like $250k, not much different from a senior SWE. However, the CEO has stock options worth hundreds of millions.

And those are ISOs, which are subject to favorable tax treatment...

...if you could exercise them for pennies, which is exactly what the CEO gets to do, because he gets the options before they ramp the valuation.

Rich people do not make high incomes. Incomes are taxed. Rich people keep their money.