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Comment by 9283409232 | Hacker News Reader

The problem with US debt comes from their unwillingness to tax billionaires. We just passed even more tax cuts for rich people and are scheduled to add more to the debt. Just tax rich people, it's not complicated.

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From their unwillingness to tax people. American tax revenue as a fraction of GDP is 6-7 percentage points lower than in the average OECD country. That gap is over $1.5 trillion/year.

The economic projections I’ve seen have shown taxing the rich will increase tax revenue by around 1.5% of GDP. We’re slated to borrow 7.3%. That math doesn’t work. To be fair, the republican math with cuts (assuming no tax cuts) also doesn’t work. Neither side is serious about this issue.

How can there possibly be an answer to "how much will tax revenue increase if we tax the rich" without specifying how much we tax the rich, and how we define the rich?

Taxing billionaires is just one of many necessary steps but it is the most important and vital step in my opinion. There are fundamental problems with how the US is run down to the local level but it starts with taxing billionaires and getting money out of politics.

To be clear, I think raising taxes on everyone is going to have to happen along with spending cuts.

What does the ideal solution look like to you? Are you happy with what DOGE is doing and if not what would you change? I'm asking genuinely because I don't think enough people put forth ideas in their own right.

Why point at billionaires, anyone with more than a million is living a comfortable life, everybody should be doing their part.

Billionaires are the ones actively fucking the world and seeking tax cuts but you're right, there are plenty of multimillionaires that need to be paying their share.

You can tax the rich, and then cut less of the good stuff. Or you can cut taxes and decimate everything. Guess what the billionaire class chose.

I fully expect uncomfortable spending cuts with raising taxes while trying to balance economic growth in order to correct this problem. Im dissatisfied with what both sides of the isle are actually doing.

If you use a reasonable definition of rich like 150k for individuals then yes it could work. But that's not what people actually mean when they say it.

False. The combined net worth of all US billionaires is about 6 trillion dollars. The US national debt is over 36 trillion dollars.

The rich half of the US populus own about $156 trillion. Thus therefore as a conclusion therefrom you only have to take 23% from half the population. Lets make it progressive from 0% at average wealth to 52% at the top.

Much less than Roosevelt's 94%

But I'm neither democrat nor republican, it might not make sense to anyone :)

To be sensible, you don't just pay 100% and be done with it. That would be silly. 1.3% for the top hoarders seems enough. It will grow back.

As the saying goes, Republicans can't do science, and Democrats can't do math.

All this 'just tax the billionaires' is the latter.

If you thought I, or anyone else thinks that by taxing billionaires we would pay off the entirety of the debt, I don't know what to tell you bud.

Silly of me to take you at your word when you said, "the problem with US debt comes from their unwillingness to tax billionaires".

Silly you indeed. I have no idea how you read that and interpret it as "taxing billionaires will pay the entire debt." As I mentioned in another comment, taxing billionaires is crucial step but one of many needed.

> I have no idea how you read that and interpret it as "taxing billionaires will pay the entire debt."

It’s the direct, logical implication of the statement and you are obviously moving the goalposts after the fact. The truth is, any tax increases will have to affect just about everyone who pays taxes in order to make any real difference. There is no possible way that taxing billionaires more is even a significant chunk of the solution.

I'm not moving goalpost, you just read my statement wrong. There are many steps to take but taxing billionaires is a crucial step to getting the funding to fix many of the other problems that cities don't have the money to tackle.

I thought taxing billionaires was supposed to fix the national debt, not to fund new spending that will supposedly "fix many of the other problems that cities don't have the money to tackle". (Which is false--lack of revenue is not the reason city governments don't work--but that's another issue). You've just moved the goalpost again.

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