You must log in or register to comment.
VAT is regressive, disproportionally taxing those who have to spend more of their income.
An income tax with a wide untaxed bracket and steeper rates for higher brackets would be more equitable.
The Supreme Court serves a purpose, but is being coopted by political interests and effectively controlled by the Senate, so changes are needed (e.g. eliminating the Senate, moving to elections, setting term limits).
Everything else is reasonable and necessary for a functioning democracy.
VAT can be tailored to not include certain staple items. It can focus frivolous purchases like private jets, yachts, etc.
No. What kind of crazy shit is this?
Income tax is one of the only tools that could be used to combat inequalityCapital gains taxes and graduated lending taxes would do far more to combat wealth inequality than income tax ever could
I’d just like to give a shout-out to estate tax, which is the only kind of tax that has the explicit purpose of preventing the establishment of an aristocracy.
Here, if you’d actually like to learn why income tax doesn’t work and why it disproportionately impacts the poorest workers: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
This is incredibly misleading. I thought propublica was better than this. They calculated these billionaires “true tax rates” based on unrealized gains. Until they cash out they don’t actually make the money.
You can argue for higher income tax brackets, or a more progressive capital gains ladder, or regulations in banking stopping rich people from using other peoples money based on equity they have or any number of way more complicated things that aren’t income related, but outside of just a wealth tax which is something entirely different, these true tax rate numbers are nonsense.
His idea that an income tax is super regressive because the wealthy can live off “unrealized gains” is wrong. But so is your assertion that they don’t actually make money until they realize the gains.
Wealthy people live off of low interest loans that use their stock as collateral. However as long as the green line goes up, they never need to really worry. And when payment comes due it just gets rolled into another loan. The primary mistake the merely rich make when trying to move up is transitioning to this model too early or too aggressively and losing their stock collateral.
This is also how billionaires take a 1 dollar “paycheck” and afford to fly private jets everywhere. “Unrealized gains” is a lie and a giant loophole in our tax system.
You must not understand how the rich make money. Unfortunate, hopefully you learn some day.
So you’re not really asking if your plan makes sense, you’re trying to force what you think on others. You’ll learn one day.
I’m not forcing anything on anyone, I’m just bringing up things they don’t like to hear.
The supreme court should probably be a random selection of judges from the lower courts, rather than a set of jerks. Maybe they serve a short term, or are selected for each case.
Not sure why abolishing income tax is on here. That’s usually a right wing fever dream.
There’s other stuff that would probably help, too.
- Enforce monopoly laws.
- Break up existing orgs that are too much.
- Nationalize ISPs.
- Do… something… about police. Just don’t let it devolve into outright private police. Probably need to unbundle all the responsibilities the police currently have into separate institutions, increase licensing requirements, increase accountability. I don’t have a fully baked answer, but if the state doesn’t provide an answer for “Someone broke into my house” then the private market will, and that’s probably going to be worse.
I like the idea of 18 year staggered terms offset by 2 years. Each president gets to nominate 2 justices each presidential term. It needs something to prevent the Senate from essentially saying “no” to every nominee like McConnell did, but it’s better than lifetime appointments.
We can thank the fucked system for allowing the orange reality TV show star to appoint 3 of the 9 current supreme court justices.
I agree, the anti-trust laws have been butchered and Citizens United v. FEC fucked everything up.
I’m waiting with baited breath for stand your ground laws to be used by armed security to kill homeless people.
a good start re: Police - nationalize training standards, ROE, and accountability nationwide, and prohibit police unions.
Income tax disproportionately impacts blue collar workers and the wealthy just avoid them, our tax system is designed to fuck working Americans. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
This was an interesting read.
Sounds like we need a wealth tax and to tax unrealized gains
Yes yes no no yes yes yes no
Yes.
Leave income tax (VAT is useful but ultimately a regressive tax in that it relies on consumption and therefore disproportionately affects the poor).
Leave the Supreme Court but add term limits-I like 13 years because it keeps the chances that any one person will be able to transform the court very small.
Add in universal pre-k and post-secondary education. Pre-k in particular benefits society at large because it teaches children how to interact with peers in an equitable fashion.
It really isn’t possible to abolish the Supreme Court without undoing the constitution entirely. You do that, and you aren’t fixing things, you’re starting over. And yeah, in theory you could amend the constitution to do it, but trying to make that happen is the same as undoing it in reality.
I’m not saying that’s an invalid choice (viva la revolution!), I’m just saying that it is a different concept entirely.
But yeah, if you just changed the first one on that list (which could be done without drastic measures), it would fix 90% of the rest.
*Undo citizens united
Abolish senate and scotus? Wtf is this?
A list of half baked ideas.
Yup.
I am pretty sure close to half this list is completely unconstitutional and literally unworkable without a whole new one.
That’s the point of a rework
Where do you get the money for UBI if income tax is abolished?
Land value tax, also popularly known as georgism.
Where do they get the money for the military budget?
Just so you know, the rest of us grudge our income tax, but pay it because of the massive benefit to us and others less fortunate
The answer is abolishing income tax below a certain threshold, and raising it above certain thresholds
Ding ding ding
No tax up to $75k, tax brackets with exponential decay reaching 95% at $1MM, all adjusted for inflation annually.
This makes sense, I agree to an extent. Abolishing income tax in hindsight is a bit extreme.
How should i know? I’m not American.
If you’re interested at all, here’s how
So your solution for funding UBI after abolishing income tax is…debt?
The debt is meaningless anyway, do you think they’ll ever pay it off?
It would require a Constitutional Convention, large amendment, or several amendments. So really hard. Furthermore getting rid of SCOTUS and the income tax aren’t good ideas. We need a court of last resort and a VAT is incredibly regressive compared to an income tax.
- Star Voting
- Voting is a national federal holiday
- Universal mail in voting
- UBI
- Medicare for all And things start getting better from there.
Why does voting day need to be a holiday if you can mail it in
To reduce barriers to voting.
And to make it more fun and increase involvement. It should be a huge celebration — not something that feels like doing your taxes.
How is it being a holiday or not a barrier if you can just mail it?
I probably should have added UBI to the list. Maybe I’ll make an updated list in the future when I spend some more time doing research. Just read about STAR voting and I still think ranked choice is simpler and better.
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Basically because influence in the senate isn’t scaled by population? I can get behind that. Any other reasons?
- Why? (Aside from that it’s stuffed with Trump appointees and insurrectionists right now, I mean.)
- Hadn’t heard of this before, but what little I’m seeing about it sounds good.
- Obviously.
- I’m definitely not up on this one.
- Maybe, but only if we introduce something else that’ll have rich people actually paying taxes (for real). Otherwise, reform income tax.
And ones you’ve neglected:
- Abolish corporate personhood
- Wealth tax
- UBI
- Constitutionally-protected reproductive rights
- Abolish 2A
- Abolish private prisons
- Abolish forced labor
And if we’re allowed to include things probably well outside the Overton Window:
- Abolish private property, prison, cops, military, borders, employment, the profit motive, corporations
- To each according to need
That’s just off the top of my head.
Abolish corporate personhood
This to me is a big one.
One big issue in bigger corporations is how the C-suite execs are inherently not being held responsible for any damages caused by their decisions, as due to the raw size of the company, these happen too late, and they can take a golden parachute and go to the next company to focus on shortest-term gains, raise stock prices, then get bonuses based on that.
But, a few things can be done to improve that, and requiring companies to have someone legally be responsible for the shit happening under them would be a huge step. Personal accountability. Either be responsible as the CEO, or have a legal document that delineates which issues fall under whose manager’s umbrella.
I’d go a step further and make C-suites / management with profit sharing or stock-based bonuses also automatically lose money for losses in said performances, even after they leave the company, based on the percentage of money they were responsible for (You worked there 12y ago to 8y ago, you were the CEO so 100% responsibility, company now lost 6 mil, you have to pay back bonuses based on 2 millions “performance”).
For government overhaul would add abolishing the presidency and per district voting (just divide seats in the house based on percentage of the vote overall, I.e. one big district).
For the rest of society: abolish private ownership of companies, but award stocks to the employees instead. This will align incentives of the company with the people most impacted by its decisions.
Income tax can stay as long as its very progressive.
Income tax and senate are important.
Fuck the Senate and giving representation unequally.
Why the fuck do CA and WY get the same representation in the Senate other than because some old slave owners pitched a fit about not having power over more populated states.
The Senate makes sense under two circumstances:
- The US is a confederation, with the majority of the sovereignty resting with individual states rather than the Federal government, and
- Senators are appointed by state legislatures and not directly elected, giving them a meaningfully different constituency and perspective than House reps.
Those circumstances existed when the Senate was initially conceived of by the founding fathers, but no longer do.
That is why the House exists.
some old slave owners pitched a fit about not having power over more populated states.
You are aware that when Congress as a whole was established, everyone owned slaves. Everyone.
The House prevents all of the red states from getting together and patently overruling California.
The Senate prevents the entire country being ruled by California.
Only through striking balance through both checks can a law that impacts everyone be advanced.
The system is build the way it is built for a reason.
California can pass all the state legislation it wants. It needs to get a bill through both house and senate to impose their will on the other 49 states.
If anything, the idea of the House of Representatives at a FEDERAL level is the stupid one.
If we got rid of the Senate, we should just change the name of the country to The United State of California.
You’re literally arguing that people shouldn’t get equal representation because you think land votes.
I’m literally not.
I’m saying checks and balances should exist because we are a country of states with different environments, different hardships, and different cultures, not a country of Californians.
Checks and balances that give inequality. Lol
Okay, one more go at trying to teach Civics 101 to the one who cant walk and chew bubblegum at the same time.
So 1 state having all the power is equality?
In your mind, equal = Californian?
1 large homogenized (probably too big a world for you, but you can google) population has the right to rule over every other population?
49 groups of people get overruled because 1 of the groups has more people?
That is why checks and balances are in place. To ensure EVERYONE gets representation, not just one powerful group.
Each state does have States rights though, so they can do as they please with their group. Unless it is something that has successfully made it through checks and balances to be enforced on the nation as a whole.
EVERYONE should be represented at the Federal level, not just the majority group.
With your throwing around of the topic of slavery earlier in the conversation, I’d think you would be for that.
So Californians should just live in Wyoming to get represented?
None of this will ever happen, but it sure makes for a nice meme.
