• SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    158
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    To be a little more clear than this headline would suggest, it’s not a 4% tax on millionaires. It is a 4% tax on people making over $1M per year. That’s a pretty far cry from someone who simply owns a house, retirement fund, or a stock portfolio worth over $1M. And it’s going to education and infrastructure. I would fully support this tax if I lived in the state.

    • jeffw@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      48
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Exactly. I feel like calling it a millionaire tax is some right wing nonsense.

      • rockSlayer@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        24
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        I wouldn’t strictly call it right wing nonsense. However, I’d definitely call it classist nonsense. Bezos owns stake in Business Insider, and is owned by Insider Inc. The CEO of Insider is Henry Blodget, who has a net worth of at least $50m and received over $300m in the sale of Insider to Axel Springer SE. The CEO of Axel Springer SE is Mathias Döpfner, with a net worth of $1.2B. The founder of Axel Springer SE is Axel Springer, who was compared to Rupert Murdoch when he was alive.

    • SCB@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      Imagine if they expanded the tax to everyone making over median income!

      A man can dream.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        1 year ago

        You could probably increase it to 4.5% and have the same effect. People making above median are still working class. That also doesn’t take into account cost of living in different areas

        • SCB@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          I’m pro jacking it way the fuck up as we move through income tiers. We could just have such nice things if we raised taxes.

          Ideally I’d like to see federal incentives tied to states tying their minimum wage to local COL, and significantly higher progressively-increasing taxes on everyone from the third quintile up.

          Then just change all welfare that isn’t a training/education program to straight cash and we are cooking with gas.

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            1 year ago

            I’d say fourth quintile but I’m personally biased and I do agree with pretty much everything you’re saying. It’s wild to me that we have a flat constant as the minimum wage and not a formula that takes into consideration your district’s cost of living. Ideally we’d have:

            Min Wage for District A = Federal Constant + k*Cost of Living in A

            It would need to be coupled with some sort of gerrymandering prevention so that districts were more representative of state areas. You’d need large cities to be their own district in this scheme.

            • SCB@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 year ago

              I don’t think voting districts and localized COL need to be tied together, but I’d sell a kidney to fix the gerrymandering shit so yeah, still agreed.

              • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                3
                ·
                1 year ago

                It’s the best way I can think of defining an area for CoL without screwing someone over. On the state level it would be heavily skewed still. Maybe counties?

                • SCB@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  County is def how I would do it. They’re more localized and self-governing and can more quickly make adjustments as needed.

      • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        1 year ago

        I think that a 4% hit would be a lot for people making significantly less money.

        The utility of each dollar drops the more you have. $1000 would be a massive amount of money to someone making minimum wage. $10000 in a single check might seem like a life changing amount of money for some people. At higher levels of wealth and income, those values would be far less significant. If you were to raise or reduce the salary of a typical Bay Area software developer by $1000, for instance, they probably wouldn’t even notice. And they’re not making $1M per year, either.

        The reason we have things like a progressive income is that we can tax someone making $1M per year an extra $40k - as much or more than many individuals make - and it’s not going to seriously affect their spending or saving habits. If we tax someone making $50k an extra $2k, they would feel it.

        • SCB@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          1 year ago

          I’m aware, but Americans are also dramatically under-taxed, and as a result most of our support structures are dramatically underfunded.

          50k is below the third quintile so wouldn’t really be touched. Third quintiles starts at 61k.

          • thecrotch@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            Americans are not under taxed, our federal government has plenty of money for whatever social programs it might want to provide. Our money is spent instead on a bloated military and pointless pet projects. How many health insurance plans could you buy for the price of one submarine or drone?

            • SCB@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              1 year ago

              Healthcare is privately bought and one of the things I’d like to shift to taxes.

              It’s so much worse than just paying more than other countries - we leave something like 30% total comp on the table. Most people would literally make more money paying health care with taxes.

              • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                1 year ago

                Take it a step further and outlaw profiting off the sick and the problem takes care of itself.

                The profit motive is the enemy of the people. It’s institutionalized greed and disgusting behavior that we reward.

                • SCB@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  arrow-down
                  2
                  ·
                  1 year ago

                  “profiting off the sick” doesn’t make any sense. So we should ban doctors because they get paid? No medical device companies should exist?

                  Not sure I can support that concept.

                  • CaptainAniki@lemmy.flight-crew.org
                    link
                    fedilink
                    English
                    arrow-up
                    2
                    arrow-down
                    1
                    ·
                    edit-2
                    1 year ago

                    I’m not talking about salary. I’m talking about corporate profits. If you can’t envision that then I feel sorry for you. We already have 501c hospitals.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Note that we already pay 5% tax on income. This is effectively a second bracket for higher income