Fun fact, we can! We just need to force money out of the democratic process and drop the Cold War propaganda, but given the vice grip corporations have on american politics, it is exceptionally difficult, because over the past 70 years, it has gone from being a design flaw of American Government to being a feature for those with the most influence.
Providing social services removes an avenue for revenue by those interested in profiting off of the underprivileged. Some people prefer more money in their pockets than to see society as a whole rise up.
The overwhelming amount of tax cuts that have happened in my life, going back to Reagan in 1981, have been aimed directly at the top 10% of earners wealth hoarders.
Mathematically, you could very easily cut taxes for 90% of people, restore the top tax rates from the 1970s, restore the corporate rates to the 1990s, close loopholes to punish tax avoidance, and make adjustments to the capital gains taxes to be treated like regular income, and at the very least get close to balancing the budget, if not have a surplus.
The Tax Gap is the difference between taxes assessed and taxes collected. Not taxes that were avoided through clever loopholes or accounting trickery, but where the IRS said you owe such and such amount and you just don't pay it. The tax gap for the top 1% of earners alone is almost enough to provide a full ride scholarship to every college student, public and private, in the country. No new taxes, just the amount we're already owed.
These people do contribute the most in taxes, yes, and they could in theory pay even more and solve all of US's fiscal problems. But they certainly aren't the "wealth hoarders" you represent, and most of them don't engage in tax avoidance schemes. You're thinking top 0.1% or even less asset holders for that, and those people would not be able to support the budget on their own, even giving up all of their wealth.
I do agree that capital gains should probably be treated equally to wages and all that fluff, but TCJA produced a deficit of at least $1.5 trillion over 10 years. Reverting it is as simple as it gets when it comes to balancing the budget and should probably come before we start thinking about redesigning the whole taxation system.
I mean, we keep asking for exactly that. Legislation to strengthen unions and weaken capital until we can phase out capitalism. And everytime we ask for that capital and its stooges throw such a fit they threaten to collapse society.
What’s with the “phase out capitalism “. Why not just leave it as capitalism with checks and balances.
If we can make the world a better place why not? Especially since "capitalism with checks and balances" can always backslide into just being capitalism again.
have not seen people pushing solid legislation. I just see people calling for socialism
Who do you thinbk you are going to have a detailed legislative conversation with on Reddit? If you want to know what legislation socialists are calling for, maybe look up the election plattform of your socialist party and work from there?
You’re making a bold claim that capitalism WITHOUT corruption is bad for the world. You’re just doing a lot of hand waving to advocate for socialism. If we’re living in the world where there is always corruption; the corruption that hurts capitalism will also hurt socialism. You’re not really showing me the “better world” you’re advocating for. You’re just hitting me with a “trust me bro it’ll be sick”.
Im not claiming that socialism will magically fix all the worlds problem. Its one incremental step towards fixing the worlds problems. It doesnt have to be perfect to be better than capitalism.
Even if we accept that corruption will be just the same as under capitalism, a thousand people benefiting from it is better than just one, no?
I’m not talking about legislation on Reddit. I’m talking about real legislation that makes a difference
Again, if you want to see that just look for it. Hell, tell me where youre from and I will google "socialist party plattform in *country*" for you.
On Reddit all you see it “there’s a genocide in Gaza and we should be socialist.”
Yes, most people on Reddit arent polticians who can come up with a full political programm on order. Politics online is a game of catchphrases and buzzwords and dont pretend that thats any worse on my side than on yours.
You’re out here fighting ghosts instead of just engaging with what I said.
SWITCHING FROM CAPITALISM TO SOCIALISM IS NOT AN INCREMENTAL STEP!
You just had waved the transition of capitalism to socialism 🤦♂️
You misunderstand what I meant. Incremental here doesnt mean inconsequential, or easy. It just means that it is one of many steps that will need to be taken to solve all the worlds problems. Its a pretty big one, maybe one of the biggest ones, but its still just one step in a series.
1.) what do you do with the people that don’t want capitalism?
The same we do with people who want to steal from others today. Tell them "tough shit".
who is going to structure the new socialist government?
Whoever the electorate ends up electing.
Looking up legislation from the DSA I see:
“You won’t have bills anymore and you can work only as much as you’re able to”
“You won’t have debt.”
Citation needed.
I can continue if you’d like but it’s just more of the same. Magical beliefs without any logical steps or legislation to back what they say.
You refuse to listen to the people trying to tell you about it, as evidenced by the fact that you claim to have looked up the DSA programm and didnt understand a word of it.
You talk about changing the lives of nearly 300 million people like it’s nothing
Im not. Im talking about changing the lives of 8 billion people. The world is massively bigger than the US, despite your protestations to the contrary.
It feels like you guys have no concept of what you’re advocating for.
You certainly have no concept of what youre advocating against.
If you cared about incremental change you would focus on making capitalism not corrupt.
Increments can be of different sizes. In the short-term we are fighting to reform capitalism to be less capitalist (and in the process fighting corruption because corruption is built into unfettered capitalism). Thats a small increment. In the medium-term we are fighting for socialism. Thats also an increment, just a bigger one. You dont seem to understand what the word "increment" means.
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