2016 US Presidential Election Thread - VII

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You guys pay obscenely low taxes compared to us. It's really, honestly not that bad. I pay 30% of every paycheque plus 13% sales tax on everything I buy (and all the other sundry ones) directly to the government. The health care is worth it alone. Even just a weekend in a hospital would completely bankrupt me if I had to pay for it out of pocket. I'd be out on the street, quite literally. As it stands now I could get gravely ill and not have to go into poverty as a result.

I know that's easily said, but Americans seem to be absolutely terrified of taxes. Sure, a lot of it gets wasted, but in my experience it's generally been worth the money.
 
You might when you get out of school and start paying taxes.


I'm in between school. Doing school and work right now. I got taxed hardcore as is (independent contractor work ?).

I'm not afraid of more taxes. More fearful of not withholding taxes after this fiscal year ?
 
You guys pay obscenely low taxes compared to us. It's really, honestly not that bad. I pay 30% of every paycheque plus 13% sales tax on everything I buy (and all the other sundry ones) directly to the government. The health care is worth it alone. Even just a weekend in a hospital would completely bankrupt me if I had to pay for it out of pocket. I'd be out on the street, quite literally. As it stands now I could get gravely ill and not have to go into poverty as a result.

I know that's easily said, but Americans seem to be absolutely terrified of taxes. Sure, a lot of it gets wasted, but in my experience it's generally been worth the money.

That about describes my situation too, albeit probably in another different country again. There are swings and roundabouts in this world. Did you know Australia spends less as a percentage of GDP on healthcare than the US? Like, way less.
 
I'm in between school. Doing school and work right now. I got taxed hardcore as is (independent contractor work ?).

I'm not afraid of more taxes. More fearful of not withholding taxes after this fiscal year ?

My condolences.
 
And it's not like if my taxes were suddenly way lower or even 0% for that matter, that I'd be able to afford something like a major surgery if I needed one. I'd still be 100% fucked. I haven't needed the health care system in Canada for very much so far in my life, and even if I never once spend any serious time in the hospital (knock on wood), my taxes went to pay for things like sick kids's treatment and needy folks getting the medical help they wouldn't get otherwise. :shrug:
 
That's the whole point of taxation (well, one of its points, the other is to ensure the national currency is recognised as a common medium of exchange) - to socialise certain costs.

In some fantasy world it might be ok for everyone to be their own little petty borgeoise sole trader, paying for doctors and surgeries like you pay for a nice meal at a restaurant. But that world looks a lot like hell to me.
 
I think it's incorrect to think that someone or a couple making $250k a year won't feel a large amount of financial pain if you were to raise their taxes by $15-25k a year. Especially if, say, you live in a coastal city with expensive real estate and a blue state that has high taxes -- state taxes vary widely in the US. Lots of non-Americans think that people in Indiana pay the same amount in tax as people in California. They don't.

That income level in particular is who may feel the most pain, since they likely won't avail themselves to many of the social services they are paying for. Granted, everyone benefits when everyone has health care and education, and I think many would be fine with paying more for a single payer system (though Obamacare is, essentially, a tax), but 10% would be hard for many to swallow.
 
You guys pay obscenely low taxes compared to us. It's really, honestly not that bad. I pay 30% of every paycheque plus 13% sales tax on everything I buy (and all the other sundry ones) directly to the government. The health care is worth it alone. Even just a weekend in a hospital would completely bankrupt me if I had to pay for it out of pocket. I'd be out on the street, quite literally. As it stands now I could get gravely ill and not have to go into poverty as a result.

I know that's easily said, but Americans seem to be absolutely terrified of taxes. Sure, a lot of it gets wasted, but in my experience it's generally been worth the money.




Most of us do have insurance, and the ranks of the uninsured are falling thanks to Obamacare. Certainly a small percentage of Americans are one illness away from bankruptcy, but people do manage to get cancer and not wind up homeless as well.
 
You guys pay obscenely low taxes compared to us. It's really, honestly not that bad. I pay 30% of every paycheque plus 13% sales tax on everything I buy (and all the other sundry ones) directly to the government. The health care is worth it alone. Even just a weekend in a hospital would completely bankrupt me if I had to pay for it out of pocket. I'd be out on the street, quite literally. As it stands now I could get gravely ill and not have to go into poverty as a result.

I know that's easily said, but Americans seem to be absolutely terrified of taxes. Sure, a lot of it gets wasted, but in my experience it's generally been worth the money.


I would hazard a guess that the people in this thread who are worried about taxes are also probably not terribly insecure on the health insurance front.

I would also hazard a guess, for the upper middle class, a Bernie-like tax plan would be pretty unambiguously negative. That's not an argument that such a plan is necessarily bad, but it is an argument that a major segment of the American population that at least doesn't feel like it has a ton of extra disposable income would be hit in a noticeable way.

Part of the issue here is that there is a massive affordability crisis in most American large cities. At least the prosperous ones minus Texas at Atlanta (to some extent). A lot of that comes from relatively prosperous non-billionaire types cramming into those cities while supply doesn't/can't keep up. Maybe the demand side of that equation is dependent enough on upper middle class incomes to where prices would fall if heavier taxes hit, but I'm skeptical.


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But that's just the thing. I don't need to buy insurance to cover myself. My work benefits cover things like glasses, dental care, and prescriptions, but I don't need to pay out of pocket for health insurance. For me personally, if I had to pay for health insurance, I probably would not be able to live where I do and my quality of life would be lower. It's another expense in a very expensive city.

That's great that you guys can get coverage, but not having to buy it is kinda the point of universal health care.
 
But that's just the thing. I don't need to buy insurance to cover myself. My work benefits cover things like glasses, dental care, and prescriptions, but I don't need to pay out of pocket for health insurance. For me personally, if I had to pay for health insurance, I probably would not be able to live where I do and my quality of life would be lower. It's another expense in a very expensive city.

That's great that you guys can get coverage, but not having to buy it is kinda the point of universal health care.


I am inclined to think, though, that part of a Bernie tax hike would be not just paying for one's own health insurance, but for insurance of people lower on the income scale as well, which would presumably be a net increase in cost.

Single payer advocates tend to point to magical cost savings that come from single payer. And maybe there's something to that, considering how much more of our GDP goes to health care than it does for the rest of the developed world. But what would single payer do to affect that? The answer that usually comes up is monopsony: because the government is the only buyer of drugs, it can negotiate lower prices. That's actually not a bad argument at all, but it does come at the cost of most likely reducing prescription drug investment in the process. (I would argue that most of the developing world has effectively been free-riding on prescription drug research funded by American consumers, actually.) We could also achieve the same effect (with the same potential consequences) by severely cutting the benefits of drug patents.

It's an interesting issue and I'm not 100% sure where I am on it.


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A lot of my friends who, in guessing, likely make around 200k as a couple are looking at moving to smaller cities because the only places they can afford to live force them to spend hours commuting each day. These are people with good jobs and master's degrees and 2-3 children and health insurance. They are looking at smaller cities (say, Pittsburgh) because housing is literally half the cost. Also, childcare is outrageous.
 
But that's just the thing. I don't need to buy insurance to cover myself. My work benefits cover things like glasses, dental care, and prescriptions, but I don't need to pay out of pocket for health insurance. For me personally, if I had to pay for health insurance, I probably would not be able to live where I do and my quality of life would be lower. It's another expense in a very expensive city.

That's great that you guys can get coverage, but not having to buy it is kinda the point of universal health care.



I get health insurance through my employer (thanks to Obamacare) that costs about $300 a month, pre-tax. My co-pay is $20 a visit.
 
I get health insurance through my employer (thanks to Obamacare) that costs about $300 a month, pre-tax. My co-pay is $20 a visit.


To be fair, that insurance costs your employer a certain non-trivial amount that they could theoretically pay to you directly if they weren't covering your health insurance. But then you'd lose the direct tax benefit and it would all be taxed at the higher rates.


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To be fair, that insurance costs your employer a certain non-trivial amount that they could theoretically pay to you directly if they weren't covering your health insurance. But then you'd lose the direct tax benefit and it would all be taxed at the higher rates.


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I'm quite happy with how it works right now. I'm fairly certain I pay less than $3600 a year in medical costs, though I have once been hospitalized and thank my lucky stars every day that I was buying my own insurance at the time. I've gone without insurance for small periods, and I've also gotten by on catastrophic coverage.

All of which is to say that I'm happy with the setup. I know how insurance works. I'd rather have that security and the tax deduction than the extra $300.
 
I'm quite happy with how it works right now. I'm fairly certain I pay less than $3600 a year in medical costs, though I have once been hospitalized and thank my lucky stars every day that I was buying my own insurance at the time. I've gone without insurance for small periods, and I've also gotten by on catastrophic coverage.

All of which is to say that I'm happy with the setup. I know how insurance works. I'd rather have that security and the tax deduction than the extra $300.


Right, I suppose I meant this comment in reference to the idea floating around that you would save money if the government increased taxes and gave you coverage via single payer universal health care because you/your employer wouldn't have to pay private premiums anymore.


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but wouldn't that be fantastic if everybody's equally insured? I mean i come from country with universal healthcare and it's freaking fantastic.
 
but wouldn't that be fantastic if everybody's equally insured? I mean i come from country with universal healthcare and it's freaking fantastic.


Maybe. But it would come at a cost borne in a noticeable way by real people who aren't billionaire 0.001%ers and who feel real pressure already financially, especially with the urban affordability crisis. There's certainly a good argument that it's worth it. But this fact at least makes it politically harder to make happen.


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New Quinnipiac poll has Sanders behind Clinton in NY 54-42. This comes two weeks after an Emerson poll had Clinton up 71-23. Whether or not it's bad polling or Sanders closing the gap is a curious thought, but one might imagine that if the race in New York is even close, Clinton should actually start legitimately worrying.
 
It's my own fault for not really paying attention to details, but I'm now convinced that Bernie will lose in the general election.....just on the tax increases.

Even after that revised Vox tax article (which was written by a Bernie supporter so I'd question his bias too), the rates still go UP. And makes sense for what he's proposing to do.

For myself, I'm looking at anywhere from 600-900 bucks a month lost to the new tax rate. I live in San Diego, I don't own a house (anymore, and it was in Iowa)

Could I survive? Yeah. Do I have to adjust, yes. A lot. It would actually make me consider moving to a city with less expense, or even back to Des Moines (which actually paid me more than what I get out here) as COL is super cheap.

I feel I'm on the very left side of politics, and I just don't think I could support this plan as is.

I have no issue with taxes going up, but not to the extent of which Bernie has proposed.

Can promise you the majority of Americans, when they do the math, would be hesitant to vote for him, and most likely would stay home.


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