[hehhehaha]

The real problem is that spending wins votes, austerity does not.

[olliej]

That and of course every implementation of austerity seems to do long term damage to the economy of countries that apply it. I recall a few articles even saying that the maths that supported austerity was the result of a spreadsheet error, though whether that’s true I don’t know.

What we do know is that tax cuts for businesses and high earners has never demonstrated any gains for the majority of citizens but has resulted in increasing disparity and reduction in the rate at which people can move up the economic ladder.

It remains weird to me that there’s an entire cohort of people who look back with yearning to the 50s-70s where that tax rates were reasonable, but then aggressively complain about any attempt to move even slightly in the direction of restoring those tax rates.

Instead we get “we will fix the economy with austerity” in which we reduce the taxes for people and companies with no cash problems, but drastically increase the costs for everyone else. If need be we will also use the taxes paid by the group that isn’t getting tax cuts to bank roll the people getting tax cuts.

[zrn900]

The real problem is that none of that spending actually goes to the people.

[rayiner]

Virtually all of it goes “to the people.” Even the military budget is mostly payroll or operations (only 18% is procurement going to defense contractors). Social security is checks to individuals. Medicare is checks to healthcare providers.

[8note]

Moreso than austerity, taxes need to be raised across the board, but that's even less popular

[rayiner]

Especially taxes on upper middle class people. The biggest difference between US tax rates and say Germany or Sweden is not corporate taxes or taxes on capital gains, but income and consumption taxes on people above the median income.

We had an au pair from Germany, who had an entry level administrative job before coming to the US. Her total tax rate in Germany was 40%, about the same as what we had in Maryland with a top 1% household income. If you want universal healthcare and college, that’s what it costs.

[chiefalchemist]

But they are raised, via inflation. When the Fed prints money (so to speak) to finance the debt, and your savings are devalued, that is effectively a tax. But no one calls it that. No one sees it that way. So no one is upset about their taxes going up, tho effectively they have.