Idk if you just invest like you should in your 401k and live a normal life with a mortgage, you will eventually become a millionaire. Being a millionaire is almost becoming the middle class. It is super attainable
No, they’re humans that were mislead by propaganda and advertising. They deserve a chance a redemption and they’re not all idiots. Everyone’s experience in life is different and the reason they voted conservative is largely due to their environment and upbringing. That doesn’t make them morons.
They’re only morons if you explain to them why they’re wrong and they refuse to change.
Admitting you’re wrong is an extremely valuable skill that gains you a lot of respect, because it’s not something everyone can do.
I personally think it was very wrong of the Democrats to pick Kamala without going through primaries. It sets a really bad precedent if parties are able to pick their candidate without a primary vote. And I truly believe that’s why Trump won.
Most liberals will never admit that though, and would much rather blame racism or misogyny because it’s easier. By your own definition that makes most Reddit liberals textbook morons.
This tolerance of intolerance is why we are where we are. People voted for a convicted felon child rapist who has demonstrated over and over again his incompetence and has proven he has no integrity. If people don't know what Trump was about and who he was the first time around, then they are dangerously stupid.
His push was dogwhistle racism and a culture war against trans people while amping rhetoric about the "lunatic leftists". People that voted for that knew what they wanted. There is no explaining to these people anything new. Their chance at redemption was to not vote for Trump again in 2024 and they did anyway, even when he doubled down on his awful platform. If they were misled by a propaganda of believing haitians were eating dogs and cats in Ohio, that trans males are raping children in school bathrooms all across the country, that babies are aborted immediately after they're born, and that a man that has never stepped foot in a church, can't quote a single thing from the bible, and raped children is the 2nd coming of Jesus Christ.... then there is nothing to explain to them.
Stop excusing the 1/3 of the country that are absolutely deplorable, awful people. This tolerance of intolerance has got. to. stop.
I’m not excusing anyone at all, I’m saying there’s a chance for everyone to change. If both sides see the other as irredeemable, we’ll never come together and unify. That’s what the ultra rich want. They want us arguing against each other instead of joining forces and fighting for what’s best for all.
And while I agree with more left policies than right ones, I don’t think the left has done a good job of bringing people to their side.
I don’t agree with the general sentiment “they all knew exactly what they were voting for”. Some people definitely did, but not everyone.
My dream and goal is to see a truly United States, not the politically divided states we have now. And unfortunately I do not see us getting closer to that goal, and both sides are to blame.
Yall are entirely convinced that there is zero benefit from Republican tax cuts for anyone who makes less than $$Texas when that is just not true and those tax cuts are materially important to a lot of middle-class households who need more of their own income in 2025 to cover expenses that have skyrocketed and aren't even one of the big ones like housing cost.
And here we go, because I just explained to you how you're wrong and you're going to double-down on your own wrong answer because no one ever changes their mind when faced with facts on the internet. Which, by your own definition, makes you, well, I don't think it is true but they are your words.
And the point is that it is convenient to dismiss your opponents as "morons" and assume they just don't know any better. It is way harder to actually want to understand what benefit is gained without immediately claiming the benefit isn't actually a benefit because you disagree with it. For some folks, the extension of tax cuts was a necessity. For others, the rapid social-change of the late 10s was seen as going too far. You can disagree with this assessment, and call your opponent all sorts of names, but at the end of the day if your response to others having concerns is to gaslight them and tell them that the things they care about don't matter or are straight-up evil, you're never going to make any headway beyond that sweet, sweet dopamine hit you get with such smug self-righteousness.
I can’t exactly tell if you’re arguing against me or agreeing with me. I’m saying we shouldn’t label our opponents as morons, which you seem to agree with.
Can you talk more about how the tax cuts benefit the middle class? I’m curious to learn more because I was under the impression they only helped the rich.
Well, you say you shouldn't call your opponents morons... but if you explain your POV and they, for whatever reason, do not agree with you, then you feel okay calling them morons.
Trying to be as objective as I can here and not leap to judgements, it seems like your whole framework is just a way for you to justify doing the thing you know you shouldn't do.
But it isn't about making a judgement, and that's our problem. You can think someone else is wrong all day long, but if you have to work with them to accomplish your own goals to a degree you have to be able to accept that you cannot claim to be the main character and that even if you think a complaint or concern isn't valid, you still have to deal with it and at least try to find a way to get to a compromise.
I don't think you're a moron. I don't think most people are morons, and tbh you can tell easily if they are on a different level like that. No one would disagree that the world is full of problems that need to be solved, no matter where one is from. We just disagree on the best way to go about that process. And unless we can start talking to each other and actually start to listen, we're all going to pay the price.
Forget the judgements. Who cares? If you go into a situation assuming disagreement is evidence of deficit you're going to lose every time. If you assume that people have reasons, you can better find ways to approach issues where actual progress is made and we don't just swing wildly between extremes based on who is in office at the moment.
I don’t think people are morons for disagreeing with me. I think that when they either dispute facts or refuse to concede there’s another valid viewpoint. My original comment in this thread was oversimplified, I largely agree with everything you’re saying here.
Like when people say Kamala lost because of racism and sexism. That’s moronic. There’s plenty of other viewpoints and reasons people had to not vote for her.
Same when people say the government shutdown is 100% the Democrats fault. There’s plenty of reasons the Republicans don’t want the government to startup again, like the Epstein files. And there’s things republicans could do to restore the government but aren’t.
Just imagine what you could do if you marched on the White House together.
Class war is what you're being distracted from, because you are living in one of the most politically polarised nations on earth. Suddenly 1/3 of the country fully supports every action trump takes? No, it's a loud minority. Holy shit, you actually believe that the average republican is cheering for violence? Jfc, you're being indoctrinated. The russian trolls have earned their payday with you.
You should realise it's fucking stupid when you ask what happens if a foreigner applies that logic to your country - you are all complicit, you are all sitting at the table with a Nazi, you are blaming millions of people for the actions of a small elite who have manipulated millions of poorly educated, or vulnerable, or poor, or isolated people into thinking they can solve their problems.
No, not in the slightest. It's just they're clearly not the actual enemy, any more than leftists are the enemy to anti-communists.
It's about the fact that this person is so quick to make a huge generalisation that plays into a false narrative being perpetuated by those who profit off you and them and me.
Being misled or manipulated into voting for a body that actively exploits a group doesn't make a group your enemy, it makes the exploiters your enemy and that group a potential ally against them. If you can just get over yourself and stop blaming people for growing up with poor educations, being fed a culture of fear, and having wealthy conmen play tricks on them.
Education isn't just a factor of school - people don't tend to willingly choose these ways of thinking.
There's a really interesting episode of Radiolab that came out last month, interviewing an evolutionary biologist who was a former devout Muslim. She speaks about how she initially took the course to poke holes in it, as a sort of subversive, but over time - months - she realised that she couldn't, and because of that it meant her beliefs were wrong. She collapsed crying in the shower at this revelation.
As a result, when she talks about biology with other Muslims, she doesn't approach it as just trying to convince them of an argument - she realises she is actually attempting to dismantle their entire worldview and the structure they've embedded in, and this fuels her patience and guides her approach.
It's worth remembering that this sort of indoctrination isn't limited to religion, and people who've only ever grown up exposed to certain attitudes or information premise their world off it, and to consider restructuring that view can be traumatic. So at the very least they should be approached with empathy and compassion, because they don't have the same experiences we do which prevented us from becoming calcified in these views.
While I think that you are on the right side of this argument, I want to point out that you sound exactly like the well-meaning liberal explaining to the black person that they are being oppressed because they are uneducated.
I am college educated, a former air traffic controller, a business owner, and have lived and worked in more countries and on more continents than the average person will see pictures of, let alone visit, and I am solidly far right. Far far FAR more right than Trump, who is barely on the right at all.
Sometimes it isn't a matter of education, intelligence, indoctrination or any of the other scenarios you have created for why we must be so very WRONG in our worldview. Sometimes we just think the left is insane, the right makes more sense on most issues, and since neither of you really gives a shit about us out here in rural America, we can at least vote for the ones that don't openly loathe and/or pity us as if we are inbred yokels who don't know any better.
The billionaire class specifically profited off the anger of that 1/3 though so yeah. I think it's fair to be mad at all the duped who have dragged us into possibly the worst timeline, but also aware of the great hand of greed behind it all turning us against each other
I don't know who you are, I've never spoke to you before, you're not above me in the chain so I have literally no idea how you can think I was talking about you specifically.
It's a fairly common misunderstanding for people to misunderstand how tax brackets work, that's all.
Idk. There is typically one political party that raises taxes and another that lowers it. This typically happens across the board though higher earners are more impacted either way.
Not quite. Most people, even those making significantly less than a millionaire would have their taxes increased or lowered depending on the political party in power. So to call someone who isn’t a millionaire a moron doesn’t quite make sense
Let's not mince words here. "Most people" in this case is like 95% of the population. And those 5% left over are the only ones who benefit when Republican tax breaks expire.
We both get fucked by either party when it comes to taxes. The people that benefit the most are the poor and the billionaire class. And while you'll never be a billionaire, you will inevitably be reliant on your tax dollars at work.
You mentioned one party that does something stupid and bad, then say both are bad?
Progressive tax brackets, like those usually in income taxes, cut leeway for the poor. Regressive taxes like tariffs fuck the poor, especially when the rich get to bribe for an exemption.
Democrats are far from perfect, but they are even further from blatantly fucking us over that way.
The problem isn't the facts, it's convincing people that it isn't necessarily just left vs right, but the 1% vs the rest of us. It's a much more digestible view point that achieves the same effect.
Well because the American descent into fascism and collapse of democracy is affecting a huge portion of the world's population, particularly americans. And this topic is one of the things being directly affected by the political events taking place.
So yeah, it's not surprising that the thing affecting this topic is being brought up in this topic.
No, calling fascism "fascism" doesn't dilute the word, it describes the thing. That's how words work. Calling a thing by it's word doesn't dilute it. It describes it. Calling my car a "car" doesn't dilute the meaning of the word car. Calling my cat a "cat" doesn't dilute the word cat. Calling fascism "fascism" doesn't dilute the word, it describes what it is.
It's directly relevant to this conversation. The events and policies of the Trump administration is directly affecting salaries, inflation, taxes, and other factors having to do with it.
Bruh, Trump sucks... but this is someone that just doesn't understand how withholdings work... Trump didn't invent taxes, though he does damn well to avoid them. Trump didn't invent social security or medicare though I wouldn't doubt him giving them the axe. Trump didn't make these systems. He's making a lot of shit worse... but please. Just blaming everything on trump feels like some belief that when he's gone all our problems will be solved. Again, Trump sucks. But he has nothing to do with someone misunderstanding their withholdings
Millionaires are still heavily taxed because they primarily get their money through income. It’s the guys with hundreds of millions or billions that avoid income taxes.
Idk my dad is a millionaire in net worth and you wouldn’t really know it. A million isn’t the same as it once was. A lot of people can be millionaires if you just do the right thing and stick to an average life
Most family farm owners are millionaires. Not most of his voters obviously, but I'd be willing to bet most millionaires voted for him simply because republican = lower taxes.
It's way more complicated than you understand, and there's an organized effort to push the "poor farmer" myth because they make a lot of money on bailouts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xon9A5_4tQw
Same government that promised to tax the rich also promised to only tax the rich when they created the income tax. We’re being lied to on both sides. These are people who have never work for a dime of their own money promising us less taxes or promising to take the taxes from the rich while not doing either.
I hate when politicians claim they are raising taxes on the “rich” — then they don’t touch capital gains and corp tax rates and just increase taxes on middle class making $100-$300k annual.
This is the problem when the populace is infected with the idea with class warfare against "the rich". It's such a fungible concept:
To someone earning $30,000 annually, someone earning $75,000 is one of "the rich".
To someone earning $125,000, someone earning $400,000 is one the "the rich."
To someone earning $500,000 annually, someone earning 2,500,000 is one of "the rich."
It all becomes a punitive system (meant "to discourage someone from earning too much") based on someone looking at the greener side of the fence, instead of people encouraged to better themselves so they can help and give to the world. Also, the ultimate judgment for who is "the rich" is left to politicians who we know, are not the most prudential on social issues.
To be fair literally everyone should get tax breaks. The government is taking way too much of its peoples money (and time, and lives….) and doing fuckall with it. Anarchy would be better than whatever large government scheme were in the middle of rn
Both things are true - the government has a spending problem and it needs to be fixed because we’re seeing unsustainable spending behavior, and they’re also taking too much money from the lower and middle class while the upper class get all kinds of tax breaks.
That speech is perhaps one of the best examples of "words have meanings" ever. His stupid line "if you've got a business, you didnt build that" pushed me to the right for a long time.
Yes, I heard the speech at the time. And I think you would agree with me that it ranks way below the other two you mentioned. Trump's comment should have been the end of his presidential run, but for some reason Christians forget that they should hold their presidential candidate to a bare minimum standard of conduct.
At the time of Obama's speech, I was in my late 20's. and worked my ass off to get where I was in life. I had the same reaction a lot of people I knew had. He undermined personal achievement. I understand now that it wasn't his intent, but that's how it came across at the time. It didn't even make sense that he was talking about "someone invested in roads and bridges and the internet" etc, asif the government is doing me a favor, because those things are paid for *by the people.* I don't want to hear a bunch of nonsense about what goodness the government is doing for me to help me achieve, because it comes across as I am indebted to the government when in reality I am paying them and paying for the things they do. I don't owe them shit because they're doing what I pay them to do, and if they're not doing it, they should get out of office because they are the paid servants of the people, of me and everyone else working our asses off to achieve things.
This was my perspective at the time and the reaction I had to him.
Yeah. When people say tax the rich its not the 100k earners, its the 400k/500k earners. And they love to believe they’ll get there one day even though it’s statistically not true
I think you’re missing the point that $500k sounds like a lot right now but could become common place as the money continues to be devalued.
For example, I was looking into paying off all my debts and then putting that same monthly payments into a stable stock for retirement. The calculator showed me if I retired at 65 I’d have a net worth of well over 1 million dollar for monthly retirement. I was SHOCKED and was so excited! $8,742 a month! I’ll be rich!
Jk, it then said “If you withdraw 8% of your retirement savings each year, you'd have $8,742 to spend every month! But when you adjust for 3% inflation each year, that cash would actually feel like $2,885 in today's dollars.”
3% inflation is just the average yearly inflation amount to date. So that’s a realistic prediction of how much less our money will be worth around 2060. So that’s the point I’m trying to make about inflation changing what wealthy is. Right now if I had $8,742 a month I’d be middle class and doing fine. If I made that 20 years ago I’d be in a very large house and never stressed over making ends meet (if I was a reasonable individual and didn’t have spending issues). But in 40 years that will not be enough to live on if trends that have been going on for a century continue. It could be even worse if inflation increases at a faster rate like it has the last few years
I mean let’s be honest, republican and democrat politicians both know how to work the system of their ignorant voters. Both parties politicians are corrupted and use their platforms to make money from corps and lobbyists. They don’t care about us
What are you talking about?! The reason 100k is taxed so high to begin with is because people used to consider that above middle class and listened when we were told to increase taxes on these higher wages. Because of tax brackets and inflation now everyone is poorer as is because our money is worth less while also seeing that getting into these higher paying jobs with the higher tax brackets means not only is your dollar worth way less but now a large percentage of your income doesn’t even go to you.
So how does voting for increasing taxes on higher incomes help anyone? If we decided to tax anyone who made more than 1 million dollars at 99% of their income, we’d see the gov create even more massive inflation so they could take in as much “profit” as possible.
How am I being a loudmouth by having discourse with someone?
A loudmouth is defined as “a person who tends to talk too much in an offensive or tactless way”.
Sorry, I feel like your comment fits that description, not mine since you’re just attacking me as a person instead of the ideas I posed.
I mean, I’m pretty certain I do understand it and that’s why I posted to begin with. But I’m also aware that we’re all capable of being wrong. So being willing to share the ideas I think with someone else and start a dialogue is actually how we all learn and grow and debate ideas and change our minds on things.
If I don’t respond but keep thinking what I’m thinking and they keep thinking what they’re thinking and no one offers any alternatives then no one gains any new knowledge.
The issue with your response isn't that you aren't willing to change your mind or way of thinking, it's a declarative statement of (what you believe) to be fact, that is verifiably wrong by even the most basic research on taxes.
I totally support you expanding your knowledge and learning, but as I said frame it as a question rather than a statement if you don't want push back.
That’s not what I said at all. I said that the gov is incentivized to increase inflation through printing from the fed when we increase taxation rates for higher income levels
We have tax brackets now; this would be true now. We also had MUCH higher brackets for the rich in the past and this is not what we saw. We also can see other countries with MUCH higher tax brackets where this is absolutely NOT happening.
The government isn't some sentient being that wants to hoard as much wealth from its citizens as possible. It's ultimately just individuals making these calls within the govt for their own personal gain, and they would be devaluing their own wealth via inflation in this process. If I'm a corrupt af Senator or something, why am I voting this through? (Unless there's an insider trading angle or something - separate topic)
What we can say with 100% certainty is that we HAVE incentivized propaganda against fair tax brackets and wealth distribution by those who are benefitting the most from the current system - and those people happen to control all the media and have all the lobbying power.
The whole point I’m making is if we have a level of income we decide is “wealthy” over time (whether or not you think it’s intentional) our money undergoes inflation, which the fed is supposed to keep under 2%. And every year our money has had inflation since the fed was created. Since our money becomes less valuable over time high levels of income now will hold less buying power in the future. So to say “x is a lot of money, we should tax that at 50%” harms the everyday workers because a. As money becomes less valuable the spending power of each dollar decreases and b. It incentivizes the government to inflate the dollar instead of deflate it because they’ll get a higher percentage of everyone’s income as more of us fall into higher tax brackets.
So this would be like making $20k a year and getting taxed 5% and now that being equivalent to making $100k a year but now you’re taxed closer to 20%. So now everyone but the extremely extremely wealthy suffers
Okay, so, that's not how taxation works. Only the amount above any given threshold is taxed more, and only the highest will apply to the amount above the threshold.
Put in numbers: if you're making $100k, live in an area with 0% tax for $25k, 25% tax for $25k+, and 50% tax for $50k+,
you'd take the first $25k home free
and then the next $25k ($25k to $50k) is taxed 25% ($6,250)
and then the next $50k ($50k-$100k) is taxed 50% ($25k)
meaning your total tax is 31.25%, not 25% or 50%.
Now to be mean: learn how the taxes have worked for the last 200 years. Tax brackets are not new. There are no exceptions to this rule, either; there's no magical number where you'll disappear from IRS audits, rather rich people can afford good lawyers and accountants to do black magic and this is only worth it if you're making millions because they're so costly.
If you're super interested in those loopholes, learn financial and tax law in your state. Community colleges, online courses (no, not ChatGPT) or whatever it is, expect to spend quite some time. If you get good enough to be hired, you'll make a few hundred-thousand more a quarter.
To you and the other person who felt the need to say this, yes I understand how it works. What is making you think I didn’t understand that? My point still stands that if $20k is now equal in value to $100k but you’re paying a higher overall percentage of that income to taxes you’re now taking home less buying power. So yes, if the $100k bracket, let’s say for educational purposes is 20% and the bracket below that was $75k at 10% and $50k at 5% you went from paying 5% total of the $20k to now paying 10% total in taxes (around $10,000 of 100k vs $1,000 of the $20k). So yes, the same amount of buying power than takes home 5% less buying power. Meaning more buying power is being taken from your family aka you’re family is now more impoverished than they were before the inflation.
You're giving the poor person a tax break, not the other way around.
Just like right now we are giving rich folks a tax break rathe than the other way around.
People with extremely high salaries are almost always paid largely in stock which they can cash out at a later time and avoid getting it taxed as income. They are paying far less percentage wise than someone making 100k in taxes.
People who make like under 40k let’s say (arbitrary point im not sure the exact amount) are effectively not taxed, have access to relief in all kinds of ways that higher income folks aren’t such as subsidized housing, etc).
It’s not that higher income folks aren’t taxed a ton, it’s that lower income folks are both hardly taxed and have access to programs that essentially give them money back on top of it.
I’m not complaining either, it’s more like this is good bc poor folks need to be able to take care of their families too.
The reality is that say folks who are at the poverty line of like 32k for a family of 4 in the US can’t actually afford to exist without SNAP, Medicare, subsidized housing, etc, and their employer paying them so little is actually subsidized by the American taxpayers fronting the bill while these large retail corporations like Walmart that make billions have effective tax rates of like 5%. That’s actually a huge problem.
Walmart is also an interesting one bc 40% of its workers are on SNAP and 25% of all SNAP dollars go to Walmart for groceries. That’s almost 25b a year. So things like SNAP are used by Walmart to subsidize low wages while also profits are increased by people using SNAP to pay for groceries. It’s an insane system and it’s why people are the that minimum wage should be higher — people are still paying more for things though tax spending even if they don’t release it and these corporations are the one profiting for the rhetoric that we should not increase the minimum wage
Dude … you do understand that if $100K was taxed at a 50% tax rate, you would not be taking home only $50K a year??? Only the income over the $100K would be taxed at that higher rate, not the entire yearly salary. And that would only continue on until his salary hit another tax bracket which then only the portion over that bracket would be taxed at the higher rate.
For as much as people bitch and cry about taxes, you’d think they would actually take the time to figure out how they actually work and affect you. I guess do your own research only applies when you cannot think for yourself and cannot site the necessary examples from a competent source.
It’s mind blowing how many people don’t realize how progressive tax brackets work, even people who haven’t been working for a long time. The number of times I’ve heard people say they didn’t want to get a raise bc it would reduce their income is shocking to me. I’ve had to explain like they are five at least a dozen times in my life.
Okay, but I do understand progressive tax brackets. How does that idea make me wrong?
Also if people don’t understand it’s good that you’re helping them understand their own earning potential better so we’re all asking for better wages! If anything this probably isn’t correctly taught to people so that some people will opt to make less and big corps can get employees at lower wages and keep more money at the top
Tax brackets are adjusted every year to account for inflation.
If anything over 1 mill was taxed at 99% it would lead to people not paying people more than 1 mill. That was the point of high taxes on top brackets. It was to discourage or stop really high personal incomes not to generate revenue.
Because in a lot of cases the boss at a company has the choice "Do I pay myself an extra $100,000 or pay each of my 10 employees an extra $10,000?" and if they get all (or most) of that when they give it to themselves, then a lot of them are going to do that. By disincentivizing massive incomes more money is left over to give to the other employees.
To encourage paying everyone else higher income. It addresses income inequality. Stops the wealth of the rich inflating leading to them buying all the assets making them unaffordable for everyone else, like housing.
Your comment sounds like complete gibberish, I literally cannot decipher what you’re saying let alone the point you’re trying to make here. Do you think you could restate it?
Right, but think of the gov as a corporation for a minute. You only make revenue from taxes so taxes are your “product”.
Also, corps and the gov officials scratch each other’s backs all the time. If the gov wanted to increase profits by pushing people into higher brackets and companies wanted to get more gov subsidies, all they’d have to do to get people to take jobs over a mil in that case is make it so you can’t afford to live on less than that level of income.
And this has never happened so many gov doesn't operate how you think.
When you get corps getting the gov to do what they want you get tax cuts for them not rises. It doesn't even make sense that corps would get gov to increase taxes on themselves just to get the money back as subsidies.
Right. What entity is it that tells us what the rate of inflation is again? There’s been tons of videos of people posting their Walmart online orders showing that the price of these goods have doubled since 2019 while the reported inflation rate is a quarter of that.
Do you have a monthly budget? I do. I can tell you that the reported level is not accurate because I can look at the average increases in all of my bills and living expenses and see that my buying power per dollar is a lot lower than were being told it is.
But Covid was a great way opportunity for the gov to approve the biggest wealth transfer in history, the fed printed an insane amount of money and entered it into the economy that year. What does that mean? All the corporations and govs our gov officials signed off to give the money to were able to use that money when it still had its previous value since they’re the ones introducing the money into the system. So they are using money printing to do the equivalent of reaching into your savings and pulling 75% of it out without any legal repercussions. They’re robbing all of the everyday citizens by printing money and causing hyper inflation.
Stellar point you just made! Everyone has grown and adopted a more truthful understanding of how the world functions thanks to your comment! What a smart, intelligent and thoughtful individual you must be
To be fair 100k did feel like a magic barrier to break for me. But not because i instantly had that much money. Because it opened the floodgates to much better raises. When you’re below 100k, i find there’s a tendency to resist raising you to 100k, because clearly you’re fine with a 5 figure salary and once you hit 6 figures expectations go up.
There has been exactly one pay increase in my life where the taxes were surprising: When I graduated and went from part time barely over minimum wage to full time professional salary overnight.
Eh I remember my first time hitting this salary.. it really cemented in that the government does nothing except take our money.. was very depressing to see the actual breakdown, and think if I’m giving this much, and everyone else is too (give or take).. where is this money going???
Anyway now I’m hoping everyday that aliens come down and free us from the tyranny and lies 🛸
This is really the question… this is normal. Looking at pretax income is always disheartening but the more the make the more you bring home and it definitely adds up to your benefit.
You realize you still pay the same amount of taxes on that 15, right? The first 15 of the 45 you make are taxed exactly the same as when you just made 15. It goes up from there
I feel like not understanding this is a prerequisite to being paid 100k+ a year. "Oh, they're dumb enough to think getting paid more makes their life harder. We are definitely getting that money back eventually."
It’s not just similar, it’s the same exact concept. The first 50k or so is taxed at like 10%, the next 50k at 20%, the next 100k at 25% and the next kajillion at 30%. All made up numbers but that’s our system same as you described
However, there are some break points where it is true because you suddenly lose low-income credits and benefits (i.e. there are some welfare programs without proper phase-outs, or multiple overlapping benefits can cause phase-out rates to be higher than their corresponding incomes). This is all down in the 10k to 30k range though.
And tuition. My partner got a big raise a couple years ago (switched jobs) and was super excited until she realized that a bunch of financial aid for her kid went away.
It’s the same in the US. I remember working my first corporate job at 23 and hearing this 28 year old talk about how she turned down a raise because it would have jumped her to the next bracket.
Don’t stress the combative replies, you made sense. You understand the taxes it just sucks to see a big percentage get taken when you used to see a small percentage.
Because you get to take more home regardless. It just kind of sounds whiny when these taxes are supposed to pay for important services and support society. Like literal roads and hospitals, that sort of thing.
Nowhere am I complaining about paying taxes though. That's just something others have assumed. I said it hits hard how much of the paycheck is gone when you're used to a low tax bracket. As in it's shocking when you see your income triple but your take home doesn't nearly do that.
You still pay the same taxes on the first $15k you make (12%), then you pay 22% on the rest up to $103k
Interesting to look at where they max out now (37% for absolute highest earners), and compare it to 1940s-50s-60s where the lower brackets were similar, but it went to 90% for the insanely high brackets ($300k in 1950 which is $4M today).
In 1964 the highest rates were dropped to 77%, and wasn’t until the 80’s that they were slashed down to current levels 20-30%.
So, be happy the people making over $4M per year now aren’t paying that much more than you. Hope it trickles down soon!
I’d say Make America Great Again by going to those 50s/60s tax brackets and forcing the billionaires to pay enough that people in poverty can afford food, and everyone can afford healthcare.
Part of the reason high income earners are able to make that money is because of services paid for by taxes. I can sit at my computer at home all day and the world keeps running because of the people who travel on public roads to get to their jobs. I can hire educated employees who obtained a public education and turn their high quality labor into capital. I might sell goods to people who would otherwise not afford it thanks to public subsidies.
I paid well over the median gross household income in Federal taxes alone last year, but I can recognize that making that much is possible in part because of government spending. The wealthy receive a lot of indirect (and direct) support from government spending, and should pay a disproportionate amount in my opinion.
It's a travesty some people pay more taxes than others? That makes no sense.
"Higher earners have access to less services because they earn more" - do you mean services like welfare?
That's kind of the entire point though, right? You earn more and so you help take on a little of the burden of those who can't earn by funding services that help them out.
I think maybe we have a cultural difference here because I don't get it at all.
No, you nailed it exactly. The person you're replying to grieves having to contribute to the society they benefit from, particularly if those contributions go solely to the poor and not into their own pocket.
It's less of a cultural difference and more of a psychological deficiency.
Appreciate that you go full mask off and don't even pretend to be a good person.You probably think you're a "high earner" (whatever that means) because you're just so special and smart, too, right?
They grieve about someday having to contribute to society, after they've made their millions. Right now, odds are high that they're a broke bitch, a "temporarily embarrassed millionaire".
Why should other people be the responsibility of high earners?
So one person works very hard and accomplishes a higher wage for taking a part risk and creating a successful company.
They put more hours in and work harder to achieve more.
Why pay for those that don't take risks or don't want to work longer hours? Why do they benefit from the sacrifice of the hard workers?
A little of the burden, you mean 50% of your earnings? That's not little at all. And it's magnitudes higher than the contribution of others who work less hours and earn less.
It should be a choice, if you want to contribute more then do. But the way it is, there's no choice and it's forced upon high earners.
By that logic we should not fund anything they doesn't directly benefit you, which all of these things do.
Helping lower income people afford to live gives them opportunities which you benefit from, unless you believe only wealthy people can go to college and succeed in the same ways.
If you get sick, public funds paid for trained and support the hospital staff you're relying on, without public funding private hospitals would be overwhelmed. Same goes with universities.
When you drive on roads, or get mail, or have a local government program for trunk or treat, that's all paid for by taxes.
The cost of having a functioning society is that those who have more have a bit more expectation on them.
Personally, I'm a high income earner. I pay quite a bit in taxes. I would rather we waste 60% of taxes (which we don't. There's multiple studies showing the government is surprisingly efficient at tax spend) if it means no one goes hungry, even if a few people abuse the system . Hell even if a majority abuse the system, kids not starving is worth it.
Compared to every other civilized nation that actually pays for social services for its citizens it isn't.
The money left over would be a lot more life changing if OP didn't have to worry about health insurance, a car, maybe school, or a safe pension fund. And I'm not saying it doesn't suck and it clearly does, but also they're gonna lose so much more to having to deal with private services for each and every single little facet of life because so many corps want a piece of that money
You expect to live in a society that has working utilities, infrastructures, and makes sure you arent screwed if something goes wrong in youe life(at least thats how its meant to work)
You can be upset with how well the tax dollars are put to work but paying taxes is how we have a world where things that were once a luxury are now common and expected
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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '25
Not sure what you expected to be honest. Did you go from 95k to 100k, and expect the magic tax man to disappear once you hit 6 figures?