[jfengel]

That's not really helping much. Yes, $0 is better than $1, but it's not really saving a ton of money.

Eliminating the need to file would be nice. That would save a lot of time.

And note that even the poorest filers still pay considerable payroll taxes, over 15%. That's actually a tax that Bezos barely pays -- it's capped at $184,000, and Bezos doesn't pay that much because his "salary" is $80,000. All of his vast earnings from capital gains pay $0 in payroll taxes.

This sounds to me like an effort to distract attention from the fact that we have a vast deficit, and we cannot close it by getting money from the bottom 50%. You're only going to reduce it meaningfully by cutting big programs (not the penny-ante ones that DOGE cut for ideological reasons, not fiscal ones) and taxing people and corporations that actually have money (people like Bezos).

[seanmcdirmid]

We really should move payroll taxes into (progressive rate) income taxes to make America more equitable. The trick is still making Medicare and social security a defined benefit that you pay into via income taxes. The next step is then funding medical insurance via income taxes as well.

[matchbok3]

Even taxing the rich won't solve the deficit, at all. However, taxing the middle class to fund all the various social programs people want is political suicide. So we are stuck here.

[jfengel]

It's going to have to be pain all around, I'm afraid. We are going to have to cut spending, a lot. And even if we eliminated discretionary spending, we'd still have a deficit.

The remainder is going to have to come from a combination of cutting non-discretionary spending and taxes. Then you just have to hope that you can grow your way out of the problem.

We spent a very long time getting ourselves into this position and it's going to be both long and painful getting ourselves out. Unfortunately, the people with the most influence over policy are the same ones who won't stand for either tax cuts or reduced spending (except for small items they can cut to punish their ideological opponents).

[ricardonunez]

After all those points orders have mentioned the only thing left it is devaluations of the dollar, that’s what many have said it will be the only viable solution since now it is out of control. I’m not sure if we can do that now, spending needs to get under control before devaluation works. Either way middle class is the one getting destroyed.

[bigbadfeline]

> Even taxing the rich won't solve the deficit, at all.

The economy isn't influenced only by taxation, there are many other important factors which are never considered by the mainstream economists, corporate and government public figures.

Fiscal policies are very important but only in the overall policy mix. Asking "Who do we tax to fix the deficit?" is the wrong question, neither the deficit nor the many other problems can be fixed by taxation alone.