[musicsnob]

That the highest earners pay the most taxes in nominal terms should not be a surprise, it's just basic math. 10% of $1B is still more than 20% of $1M. These self-annointed elites are still hoarding an incredible amount of wealth, with average tax rates that are often more lower than lower income brackets. Yet, they consume more services than lower income people.

Social Security is more than 90% funded by payroll taxes collected exclusively for that purpose. Combining that budget item with HHS and other departments funded by more general income taxes is quite misleading. Defense is the largest single expenditure in the US budget -- even more so when factoring in the VA.

Finally, more dollars can always be printed because the US dollar holds the highly privileged position of being the "world's currency", and exploiting the benefits from that, such as printing a near-endless supply of USD without causing a gallon of milk to cost $1500 (yet).

Numbers aside, you seem to suggest that The Free Market could correct our path to fascism, and that pesky human services and wanton over-regulation are what are really preventing us from reaching our final enlightened form... We are all much closer to being destitute than we are to being next in line for billionaire-dom. "It's a big club, and you ain't in it."

[rsp1984]

> you seem to suggest that The Free Market could correct our path to fascism, and that pesky human services and wanton over-regulation are what are really preventing us from reaching our final enlightened form...

Not quite. I am merely pointing out that capitalism and free markets are not the enemy and that larger, more involved governments, which the political left (to which I'd assign the author) support, are a perfect breeding ground for sleaze, corruption and nepotism. This effect btw. can be observed in all of the states in which socialism has been tried. Each and every time, without exception, citizens are fleeing from these countries into capitalist countries and it's never the other way round.

[musicsnob]

I'd argue that free markets are usually the enemy. They are not self-regulating, they are profit-maximizing. Capital's interests are not aligned with the Public's interests. Do you enjoy drinking contaminated water? Breathing leaded gasoline? Being locked in your office/factory with no fire suppression or escape routes? Why won't someone please think of the poor billionaires' profits?

Look no further back than right now to find that sleaze, corruption, and nepotism: Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, David Ellison, and so many more.

Would you estimate that socialism is practiced in Europe? Are Europeans fleeing? Have you found many examples of socialism in the Central and Southern Americas which have been allowed to operate without external interference? There is a rich history of the USA interfering in socialist and generally leftist countries with democratic processes. See Salvador Allende to begin. Death squads, hyperinflation, and authoritarian fascist regimes will certainly sway a few people to flee those situations.