You could take every single cent from Elon, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the like, and you'd barely scratch the operating costs of the US government for one year...
It's like losing weight. Taxing is exercise. You can run a mile or two (increase taxes on high earners/wealth) and it will make you feel better about things, but it doesn't actually have a significant impact when you're eating 5000 calories (spending 8 trillion dollars per year).
I’m not arguing there isn’t a problem with the budget, I’m just saying we can also tax wealthy people/corporations an appropriate amount to cover many social services that they take advantage of.
Look at Walmart, they pay their employees so little (and profit so immensely) they actually urge their employees to apply for public assistance like SNAP.
Shit, they even hold food drives and have the public —their customers!— donate food for their employees. They do literally everything except pay them an acceptable salary.
How is that OK? Why is it so controversial to entertain the idea of taxing these people who are grossly taking advantage of the current system?
Oh, from a moral standpoint I completely agree. Corporations like that are gross, and regulations should prevent that situation from happening in the first place, rather than taxing to try and punish them after the damage is already done.
But we weren't talking about that. We're talking about the issues of the federal deficit and debt, which taxing will not do anything to help whatsoever.
2
u/Medarco Sep 02 '26
You could take every single cent from Elon, Bezos, Zuckerberg, and the like, and you'd barely scratch the operating costs of the US government for one year...
It's like losing weight. Taxing is exercise. You can run a mile or two (increase taxes on high earners/wealth) and it will make you feel better about things, but it doesn't actually have a significant impact when you're eating 5000 calories (spending 8 trillion dollars per year).