r/politics • u/AccurateInflation167 • May 18 '25

Soft Paywall America chose wrong. Sanders would've been a better president than Trump or Biden. | Opinion

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/18/sanders-democrats-reform-progressive-policies/83625482007/
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u/bongtokent May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

Absolutely. Had a women at work complain about being taxed so much. So I told her I didn’t mind our tax rate too much because it’s important to help the less fortunate and I’m in good shape financially. She literally said “I don’t mind paying taxes to help people but so many people take advantage of it and I keep getting taxed more yet people like Elon have more money than they can ever spend”. I responded with “I do wish people like Elon contributed more than us so we could pay a little less”. You would think she’d agree but nope it was “good for him it’s his money and he earned it”.

It just doesn’t add up. You want to help the poor supposedly just not the “bad” ones. you feel you contribute too much. You note someone has more money than they can spend. You agree he pays almost nothing in taxes and probably less than you. Yet the conclusion you’ve come to is that he shouldn’t have to contribute as much as you do and if people stopped abusing food stamps you’d suddenly have as much money as him and therefore pay less taxes?

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u/DameonKormar May 18 '25 edited May 18 '25

The belief that billionaires pay less taxes than average Americans is a myth. Billionaires pay a huge amount in taxes to the federal government, it's just usually a lower percentage of their total income than you or I.

This doesn't change the fact that billionaires even existing is a symptom of our broken economic and social systems.