TheVoiceOfJoyce The wealthy aren’t like you and me. The top 25% get all the tax breaks, they used to pay 70% in taxes to the Federal government, now the Fortune 400 pay an effective rate of 23%. The poor and middle class are the revenue generators. Meanwhile, the top 400, lend money to the government and make interest on their money, too. Who pays that interest, the remaining taxpayers, you and me. Is this equitable, no. Has it been going on since the Regan years? Yes. It is time to eliminate the deficit? Yes. How tax the wealthy. If we tax the wealthy, we’ll have enough money for education and a social safety net. How many more years do you want to remain uneducated, in need of social services and pollution control? How many more years will you tolerate inequality at every level of Society. If it were up to Ron DeSantis, no one in Florida would have a an education that requires critical thinking or teaches our history. How many more years before you say enough and vote him out of office? How long before you vote everyone espousing low taxes for the wealthy out of office?

Posted on by jaslvr

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/01/republicans-arent-going-to-tell-americans-the-real-cause-of-our-314tn-debt

Trump’s 2017 tax cut – largely a handout to the rich – helped push the tax rate on the 400 wealthiest households below the rates for almost everyone else.

By 2018, the 400 wealthiest American households paid a lower total tax rate – including federal, state, and local taxes – than any other income group. Their overall tax rate was only 23%. It had been 70% in 1950.

Middle-class and poor families didn’t benefit from the drop in income and corporate taxes. They now pay more in payroll taxes (which finance Medicare and Social Security) than previously, so their overall taxes have remained fairly flat.

One of the biggest reasons the federal debt has exploded is that tax cuts on corporations and wealthier Americans have reduced government revenue.

In the first full year of the Trump tax cut, the federal budget deficit increased by $113bn while corporate tax receipts fell by about $90bn, which would account for nearly 80% of the deficit increase.

Meanwhile, America’s wealthy have been financing America’s exploding debt by lending the federal government money, for which the government pays them interest.

As the federal debt continues to mount, these interest payments are ballooning – hitting a record $475bn in the last fiscal next year (which ran through September). The Congressional Budget Office predicts that interest payments on the federal debt will reach 3.3% of the GDP by 2032 and 7.2% by 2052.

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