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Lowest-taxed group in each state of the United States (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/dataisbeautiful@lemmy.world
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[+] -38 points 2 years ago (4 children)

So you want socialism. No thanks. If I earn $500k a year because I went to college and put in far more effort than someone who makes $50k a year, why should I pay multiples more in taxes than them? Someone earning $50k a year is leaching far more off society than someone making $500k. The $50k per year person buys less and pays less sales tax, they have a far smaller house and pays far less property tax. They will be much more likely to incur medical bills they can't pay. If you have a disability, great, you get assistance (or should), but if you are lazy, why shouldn't you pay the same income tax as me? I pay the tax on everything else that I consume.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    They will be much more likely to incur medical bills they can't pay.

    Wow, you almost got the point there then got completely lost. Low income people can't pay medical bills because they don't have the money to do so. How will taxing them help that situation? You seem like a student of the "fuck you, I've got mine" school of thought.

    Take the Waltons of Walmart fame as an extreme example. They are some of the richest people in America but their Walmart employees include people that are being paid so poorly they also need to collect social services such as food stamps and Medicaid. Walmart pays low wages knowing the employees can't survive and will be assisted by the taxpayers. Paying lower wages means more profits and more money in the Waltons pockets at the expense of the employees. Do you think the Waltons are spending all their extra earnings on things that incur more taxes or are they just putting it away like a dragon on their pile of treasure?

    Walmart also uses taxpayer funded services like public roads to move goods, the FAA and ATC for their corporate and private jets, tax breaks when they build new warehouses or stores, etc. So, are the underpaid Walmart employees the ones leaching off society or is it the high earners like the Waltons causing the issues?

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  • [+] -15 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    I am a "fuck you, I am still working hard every day for mine" kind of person. I have known many people who flake out and try to take short cuts, then blame everyone but themselves for their problems. People who work for walmart are idiots. They go find an easy job, then stay long after they should. If walmart had a hard time employing people they would have to raise the wages and benefits. But they don't, and don't have to. Supply and demand. If I was a dog walker and walked a millionaires dog every day do you think they owe me a livable wage, a 401k, and Healthcare? Hell no, go find a real job. Yes, underpaid walmart employees are absolutely leaching off society. Go find some real work... take off that dumb blue shirt and either make money with your brain or with your muscles.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago

    If someone is underpaid, that means they are working harder/longer than they should for the pay they get, right? Which means they are giving more than they are getting. That makes it the opposite of leaching.

    Walmart is the one getting more than they should for the amount of pay they offer. So isn't it Walmart that is the leach in this example?

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago

    If I earn $500k a year because I went to college and put in far more effort than someone who makes $50k a year, why should I pay multiples more in taxes than them?

    Because you are forgetting of the net benefit of taxes that have been paid for decades before you were born, which improved everyone's standing to allow for:
    The training of your teachers to allow you to get your education.
    The city infrastructure that allowed you easy access to school, and later to your profession.
    The social stability for your business to thrive.
    The quality of life for your business's customers, allowing them to afford to be customers, allowing the business to afford your $500k a year.

    You do not live in a vacuum. If all the people who make $50k a year disappeared it would significantly negatively impact your life. "A rising tide raises all ships", and a society on which everyone can thrive benefits everyone in that society. You can afford to pay a higher % and still thrive, in order to ease the burden on someone who is struggling.

    You're argument of "I make more money than I need, I should keep it and let other people starve" isn't very compelling.

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  • [–] 10 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Lol on how Liberals have no idea what socialism is. :)

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  • [+] -11 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Not a liberal. I am a hard working capitalist that wants to earn more for working harder. Just read the wiki page. You definitely want socialism. No thanks. This is a very academic idea that would never work, as we have seen. It just allows the lazy to be more lazy, but the people who would innovate in a capitalist economy to have no motivation to take risks and work harder.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism

    Socialist systems divide into non-market and market forms.[15][16] A non-market socialist system seeks to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies, irrationalities, unpredictability, and crises that socialists traditionally associate with capital accumulation and the profit system.[17] Market socialism retains the use of monetary prices, factor markets and sometimes the profit motive.[18][19][20] ...

    By the late 19th century, after the work of Karl Marx and his collaborator Friedrich Engels, socialism had come to signify anti-capitalism and advocacy for a post-capitalist system based on some form of social ownership of the means of production.[29][30] By the early 1920s, communism and social democracy had become the two dominant political tendencies within the international socialist movement,[31] with socialism itself becoming the most influential secular movement of the 20th century.[32] ...

    A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.[334]

    —Albert Einstein, "Why Socialism?", 1949

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago*

    So, high income taxes is the collectivization of the means of production? You wrote a lot of words, but none of them make sense in regards of your original statement.

    And yes, I want socialism (though not in the form you probably assume, but this is getting really OT). But we are not talking about socialism here.

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