Will taxing the rich really be able to fund everything Democrats promise?

[WuWei]

No…

[WuWei]

@hindsight

OP, thank you for defending the wealth of people earning millions of dollars every year from evil US government taxes. I’m sure they appreciate your efforts.

That was rude. Wind your neck in.

[WuWei]

Income tax on the top 1% doesn’t get you anything. They don’t earn a wage.

[highroller]

That’s why it’s called an income tax and not a wage tax.

[Eagle-Keeper]

@adroit

It’s estimated that this would cost a total of $70 billion in taxes. Keep in mind, this isn’t $70 billion more than what people spend right now. It’d just be a shift from people paying tuition out of pocket to paying for it from the general fund.

How did someone arrive at 70 billion? That seems low. According this source :

https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372

“The number of students projected to attend American colleges and universities in fall 2018 is 19.9 million”

If you project an average cost of even just $20,000 per student we are at 400 billion dollars. Also, I don’t believe that 20 million includes trade schools or two year technical schools either.

PS - I’m not here to defend the Republican tax plan.

[adroit]

@Eagle-Keeper

How did someone arrive at 70 billion? That seems low. According this source :

Fast Facts: Back-to-school statistics (372)

“The number of students projected to attend American colleges and universities in fall 2018 is 19.9 million”

If you project an average cost of even just $20,000 per student we are at 400 billion dollars. Also, I don’t believe that 20 million includes trade schools or two year technical schools either.

PS - I’m not here to defend the Republican tax plan.

Total tuition and fees spent on public postsecondary institutions in FY2017 (4-year, 2-year and less than 2-year): $75.842 Billion [1]

1. https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019021REV.pdf

[Eagle-Keeper]

@adroit

I’ve seen costs for this ranging from $2 billion a year to $12 billion a year. Either way, seems like a no brainer.

Again, I would argue that hat number is very low as well. Based on the numbers I found we would be looking at adding about another 5 million students to the public school system, which from this source indicates that we spend on average over $12,000 per student:

What Country Spends the Most on Education?

That would put the costs at over 56 billion.

[Eagle-Keeper]

70 billion divided by 20 million only gives an average cost of $3,500 per student? I’ll have to look at that source over again? The math doesn’t seem to add up?

[WuWei]

No…

[Weedhopper]

The new green deal and Medicare for all would bankrupt America ten times over, shouldn’t even be a discussion but fake news will push it because it will hurt America. These people are sick!

[adroit]

@Eagle-Keeper

70 billion divided by 20 million only gives an average cost of $3,500 per student? I’ll have to look at that source over again? The math doesn’t seem to add up?

There are about 15 million enrolled in public institutions. Table 5 of the source I cited.

[adroit]

@Weedhopper

The new green deal and Medicare for all would bankrupt America ten times over, shouldn’t even be a discussion but fake news will push it because it will hurt America. These people are sick!

Well ■■■■■ if M4A is going to bankrupt America 10 times over, what’s the current system which will cost $2 trillion more over 10 years going to do to us?

[Weedhopper]

Regulating cow farts?

Please spare me, these people are beyond stupid!

[WuWei]

@ImRightYoureWrong

@WuWei

You want to tax Chinese and Belgians? I’m cool with that.

Nice dodge.

How? That story has nothing to do with us.

[Eagle-Keeper]

15 million is still only about $4,700 student.

[adroit]

@Eagle-Keeper

15 million is still only about $4,700 student.

Ok? Are you objecting to the Education Department’s report that breaks down the financials of postsecondary institutions?

[Cratic3947]

No, If dems would actually study their dream land of Scandinavia, they’d find out they tax the heck out of the poor and lower classes to pay for everything.

[WuWei]

@ImRightYoureWrong

@WuWei

How? That story has nothing to do with us.

Ya dude im totally talking about taxing foreigners

That story was about nothing but foreigners.

[ImRightYoureWrong]

@WuWei

You want to tax Chinese and Belgians? I’m cool with that.

@WuWei

That story was about nothing but foreigners.

Stop arguing just to argue. I was obviously speaking to the means of the upper class generally and how well off the super rich are.

[John_Wick]

@adroit

@Eagle-Keeper

Democrat hopefuls for president are promising many things like “free” preschool, “free” college, “free” childcare, universal basic income, Green New Deal, Medicare for all, etc., etc., etc. Proposals to fund most of this involves taxing the rich through substantially higher marginal rates and or a wealth tax. I was curious if anyone here has looked at what it would take to fund all this and what are realistic figures on actual revenue that would be generated by taxing the wealthy?

Not everything, but let’s look at some of the big ones.

Medicare for All

The Mercatus study that Republicans like to cite shows that it will cost $32 trillion over 10 years. The thing is, our current system will cost $2 trillion more than that over the same time period. So switching to M4A wouldn’t require a “taxing the rich” so to speak, it’d require a shift in funding sources/types (e.g. instead of employers paying a portion of the premiums on private plans, they’d pay a tax that funds M4A and this would potentially be lower, seeing how the overall system would cost less).

Publicly Funded College/Higher Education/Trade School

It’s estimated that this would cost a total of $70 billion in taxes. Keep in mind, this isn’t $70 billion more than what people spend right now. It’d just be a shift from people paying tuition out of pocket to paying for it from the general fund. Again, a shift of funding sources/types. Now, keep in mind, due to the Trump Tax Cuts, we brought in $200 billion LESS revenue than we would have with the previous tax code. Had we stuck with the status quo, we could have funded public higher education and had $130B left a year. So, I guess you could call it taxing the rich now, but I’d call it not disproportionately giving them a deficit fueled windfall.

Universal Childcare

Moody’s analysis [1] of Warren’s Universal Childcare proposal estimates it would cost $1.7 Billion over a decade. So, $170 million a year. I don’t understand why this would even been a question, given we’d have $130B left a year after publicly funded college simply by going back to the previous tax code.

Universal Preschool

I’ve seen costs for this ranging from $2 billion a year to $12 billion a year. Either way, seems like a no brainer.

I’m not going to touch UBI or Green New Deal. I’m not sold on UBI (especially if we have all of these safety net programs) and the Green New Deal is a hodge podge of proposals, many of which are covered in my previous points.

But, as you can see, the argument needs to be reframed from “taxing the rich” to asking the public: Would you rather we give a disproportionate, deficit fueled windfall to corporations and the wealthy, or would you rather use that revenue to provide: Universal Healthcare, Higher Education, Childcare and Preschool? Because all of that could be funded with the status quo previous to the GOP tax cuts and we’d still have some money left over (to the tune of like $100 Billion a year + $200 Billion more in the economy due to lower healthcare spending).

1. https://www.economy.com/mark-zandi/documents/2019-02-18-Child-Care-Act.pdf

Aaaaaaack! SOCIALISM!!! This will destroy us all.