“Yeah, they should be smart and just commit tax evasion, I guess...?”

“Tax refunds are a crucial source of cash for many Americans, especially those who are low income.”

“Sorry some of us are getting pretty sick of politicians that think promising us crumbs and delivering nothing is acceptable.”

“This country is producing wealth at a higher rate than it ever has before.”

Pragmatic solution?

What about a third solution? OASDI is an insurance program. Let people decide what level of coverage they want including none. The ability to opt out disconnects the population that wants a more robust OASDI program from the people that don’t.

In my experience most lenders (not just for student loans) will decrease the next payment amount until you’ve made a complete overpayment. After that they’ll start moving your next due date out. They may not even continue to send you monthly invoices once you’re a month ahead.

Monopsonies give orders and businesses comply, beg, take their goods and services elsewhere, or cease to exist. The power of a single payer system is the fact that it removes virtually all power from the other side. Single payer is not a friendly public-private partnership. It’s a hostile maneuver. It is fundamentally…

Huh? That’s not a way. That’s the status quo. It’s the same way that there are healthcare providers in the US today that rely on privately insured people to cover, frankly, the losses they incur accepting Medicare/Medicaid patients. We pay more so they can pay less even within our own system. That pattern crosses…

Yeah about Switzerland...

There’s no factual backup for it because it’s speculative. The final, largest, western economy moving from a market system to a non-market system in the space is unprecedented. The idea that things will be ok because they were ok for other countries is similarly speculative and lacking in factual support. We operate…

I guess you’ve never heard of price discrimination.

“It’s a system used by every other Western nation.”

“They built the highways and gave GIs free college.”

We have had marginal tax rates that high and the tax code was so full of ways to avoid liability that effective rates weren’t fundamentally too dissimilar to where they are now.

I see two completely unrelated statistics that apparently mean something to you and seven other people?

The point where the 75% of the American population that under normal circumstances only contributes 14% to the pot decides that it’s important enough for them to pony up is the point where we should do something.

“But SS was never an insurance or investment program”

It’s a math issue. Tax hikes tend to result in good value for other people but not the ones that actually have to bear the burden. It’s hard for people that don’t understand that existence has never been a team sport.

The article was about (regular/earned) income tax.