Hacker News Reader

Comment by ameister14 | Hacker News Reader

Well, I got it from you saying that you think that a few extra bucks from a small group of people won't make a difference in response to someone suggesting the amount the rich spent on charity could be given to the government instead.

That implies that the tens of billions of dollars spent by the rich on charitable donations wouldn't make an impact if given to the government, doesn't it? If that's the case, why tax them for that amount?

View on HN

Tens of billions? No, it wouldn't make a difference, and I think it's highly debatable that those tens of billions would be better off in the hands of the fed. I imagine the people actually giving away billions of dollars don't feel that it would be.

The 2019 federal budget was $4.407 trillion. let's say we're talking about $20B in voluntary tax overpayment (good luck with that!), which would represent .004914% of the budget. That would pay about 3% of the interest on US debt in the last year. It would change nothing.

However, increase the marginal tax rate and you're talking about real money. Maybe in the meantime we can spend a little less on the military, but that's a tough sell too.

This argument is downright silly. 20bln can do a lot of stuff. You’re conflating reckless spending and the amount of utility 20bln has.

Go look say the budget breakdown. 20B can't "do a lot of stuff" in a country this size.

Just want to point out, the annual budget for national parks is 2.7 billion and TANF is under 17, so you could pay for both every national park and 3.1 million needy families with that

Reply on news.ycombinator.com