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by CyrsBel 488 days ago
So far they said 20% refunds, 20% against the debt, and the rest...presumably they are determining to what extent to put that into tax cuts and the other two buckets some more. This way everyone wins, assuming their savings so far are sustainable and annualized.
3 comments
smallmancontrov 488 days ago
No, loudly broadcasting the heavy-handed implication that you have found $100B in fraud without having found $100B in fraud is still bad, even if the 1/1000th that they did find (I'm being generous here) is real and goes into tax cuts / debt.

Also, the capital gains taxes ARE low and the income taxes ARE high, so just paying down the debt isn't nearly so "even-handed" as it seems.

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larkost 488 days ago
While I agree with you on the opinion that capital gains taxes are low (I should not be paying less on my winnings from bets on the stock market than I am on the income from my work). I think you need to justify the opinion that income taxes are high.

Personal income taxes are the larges revenue source for the U.S. Government, so it is the main way we have decided to tax ourselves. Arguably it is one of the most steerable, and we have long health that progressive taxation is for the common good (as much of a mockery as some high-income individuals have made of that).

So with that as the background, the U.S. ranks towards the bottom of the OCED countries in taxes vs. GDP. Yes we get less than the citizens of the countries paying the most, but not that much less.

https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/how-do-us-taxes-co...

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pqtyw 488 days ago
> 20% against the debt

That seems insignificant when their other proposed policies are intended to massively increase that debt?

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SmirkingRevenge 488 days ago
The rampage isn't going to save money on net, and even if it did, it would amount to a fart in a hurricane.

Like.. we could just personally tax Elon a little bit more while changing nothing else and recover more money, most likely.

Elimination (or indefinite pause) of the CFPB that was a trade of 21 billion in consumer savings for like 750 million in expenses.

If they wanted to improve efficiency, there's an easy place to start: the IRS. And you wouldn't start by firing, you'd start hiring lots and lots of people.

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