Part of changing as a society is helping create harsh challenging conditions where only certain people can flourish if they are of a certain persuasion and background. The rest can go pound sand.

NOTE: I believe this is thematically the thought of both parties.

I went to Burger King for lunch, but they were closed because it was during school hours.

Seriously?

I worked in grocery stores for almost a decade. By and large, the people working in grocery stores were middle-upper management (section or store management), kids, second income workers (usually wives/moms), older/elderly, and a number of people who drifted from job-to-job every several months or a year. The people I saw stay for over a few years were the managers and second income people. You're always going to have a portion who try to make a living out of it for various reasons, but the point is, it doesn't look like that's a viable option any more. 40-50 years ago, it might have been, unforced. Things change over time. Those jobs are not worth what it costs today to be viable long-term jobs.

I go through this quite often in terms of insurance licensing for retail clients. No one wants to pay to license individual agents to sell insurance because retail workers are, by and large, a transient job force. You can't spend 3 months and hundreds of dollars to license someone to sell insurance and then watch them walk away - with a license you paid for. That's one of the reasons the industry was so invested on getting portable electronics insurance licensing at an entity level, so that Best Buy can sell you lost/theft on your cellphone without investing in the worker selling it to you in the store.

And yes, our Kroger has a mix of kids, elderly and challenged folks who bag groceries.

The dude flipping burgers today will likely not be there flipping burgers in 6 months.

No I was mocking the clichéd argument that retail/fast food workers don't deserve more money because they are just high school kids.

Heh. Who knows? I mean, maybe this is just where free market/capitalism just eventually ends. People will always be selfish and greedy. We'll never see the elites or even the upper middle accepting pay cuts en masse to help others. Maybe it has to get so bad that both the red and blue underclass--who, if combined, make up the overwhelming majority of our enlisted armed forces--are in such bad shape that they unite, revolt, and overthrow. I don't really see a path to political leaders fixing it.

DING DING DING! We have a WINNAH!

Well, to bring this discussion full circle to present times, every fast food restaurant in my town has been shut down on multiple occasions due to lack of workers over the past 3-4 months. So your mocking post is actually quite true.

And to Ksyrup's comment, I do my grocery & other retail shopping almost exclusively from 6am-Noon on weekdays to avoid having to wait in line, and his characterization of that workforce does seem mostly accurate in my experience, though the one thing I would add to that would be college kids. I know a few of these personally, and there are plenty of others in that demographic that I see working weekly that I don't know. Maybe it's just unique to Greensboro/The Triad because we have an insane number of colleges/universities here, but it appears that the cost of higher ed has created a pool of college kids who are taking classes, living with their parents, and have availability to work during some weekdays.

Oh, and if it isn't obvious--the *need* for workers in retail has to be far lower during the workday. When I'm returning home from taking the kids to school and stop at the grocery store at 7:55am, there are never more than 2 lanes open, and there's no one bagging groceries. The few times I've had to pick something up shortly before dinner time, it's 6-8 open lanes with grocery baggers in nearly all of them.

And by the way, I'm not necessarily arguing against the facts but more the proposed solution, which will do nothing to encourage anyone from moving away from jobs no longer providing a sustainable income and expecting either the government to provide for them or for the government to force companies to pay them more. It seems to me that will just exacerbate the issue, even if it is the simplest attempted answer for a difficult issue. I'd make the same argument if we were talking about a 25 year old switchboard operator in 1980 who thought they'd make a 30+ year career out of it. The only constant is change.

Someone has to pay for it, and it will be a lot of people who may be marginally in a better place than those workers, but still living check-to-check and for whom the additional cost will simply make things worse for them. So then we'll have a larger pool of at-risk people. Great.

Weirdly, looking at the "popular times" Google lists for one of our Walmart Supercenters, it's a pretty symmetrical graph which is linear in ramp up from 7AM to 1PM, plateaus from 1PM to 5PM, and then falls off linearly again until 10PM. (For today anyway, there are variances from DTD.) The OTHER Supercenter does look back-weighted to peak at 5PM.

This is another change in the past 40 years, I'd imagine. I remember my mom carting us around to stores all morning and afternoon (or at least it seemed that way to me as a kid). Past that, she was home making dinner.

I don't get why it matters if they're making a 30 year career out of it or just doing it to get by until something better comes along.

I mean, the other thing you guys are missing is the wage hikes don't just help the high school kid bagging groceries, they help the person who is a checkout cashier or running the floral stand or cashing checks or almost any other non-management job, as it shifts the pay scale up across the board.

I just don't value anyone's labor that low. I certainly wouldn't want to do any of those jobs, even if they paid much more than I currently make. If people at these jobs were paid more, most of them would still want to be looking for better jobs with better working conditions, but they'd have the means to get educated or trained at other skills that could serve them in the job market.

And, well, right. Of course this was the idea behind unions -- the overwhelming underclass organizing to fight back against the elites -- but the elites can't stomach those, so perhaps something more violent it eventually will be.

I'd like to think that government is the appropriate apparatus to lean on the elites so that it doesn't get to that point, but there doesn't seem to be enough of an agreement on that to actually work.

You're focusing on who it helps as if that's all that matters. There's a bigger picture to be considered. Shifting the pay scale up across the board has ramifications if its artificially coerced.

Another aside - the idea of kids working is another thing entirely. As a parent looking to their futures, a lot of the time I didn't WANT my kids taking time to work, I wanted them to concentrate on their schoolwork and extracurriculars (because college). Of course we had the privilege ($$) to have that option.

The options seem to be:

1. Shifting the pay scale higher
2. Shifting costs lower
3. Government support
4. A big eff-off

I'd like to know if there's a) something I'm missing or b) any evidence that one side's solution is not 100% #4.

[EDIT--yeah. This turned out to be untrue. Too bad. As nation-crippling boob jokes go, it wasn't bad]

Honestly that's what it is most of the time. It's not high-tech hacking methods that are the entry point (those come later), it's people clicking on stupid shit. Clicking on things they shouldn't, not changing default admin accounts/passwords. We try to train them, but people are gullible.

I wonder if the above is true.

It has to be true. It's on the internet. Written in big letters and a clever typeface.

I'm convinced.

I just saw a report that the company shut down the pipeline because they couldn't bill.

I really hope that isn't true.

This is just not true. We actually know what life was like with a higher minimum wage and government supporting things like education. It happened to be the most prosperous eras in our nation's history for the middle class.

The idea that everyday items will suddenly become unobtainable is a myth perpetuated by special interest and lobbying groups. It has no basis in reality.

I would love it if we could get a UBI and not have increased inflation. I would seriously consider retiring immediately.

Depends on how much. $12k x 2 (me and wife), yeah I can see stop working and live on the $24k + savings/investments. I don't think it's good enough for a single person. But I can see a "group" pooling the $ together so basics are covered and not working.

There's bound to be a group that will stop working because it's "enough". A group that will keep on working regardless. Don't know what that % split is but will be different based on current status/income.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/14/budget-neutral-universal-basic-income-plan-would-pay-1320-per-month.html#:~:text=According%20to%20one%20estimate%2C%20Yang's,by%20a%20%2412%2C000%20yearly%20payment.
Access Denied

Really? My sister has been working at Wendy's for ten years. She is not in management. It is just the only job she could get that gave her the flexibility to also watch her grandkids. You would be shocked at the number of older adults that work at fast food restaurants because they have no other choice.

Not much info on where the Jobs/Infrastructure and the Families plans. Seems that Biden is losing momentum here so my prediction is he'll have to compromise for smaller $ than the $2T and $1.8T proposed.

Exactly. It is not science fiction. Several states already have much higher minimum wages, and the cost of goods have not skyrocketed there. The most we are looking at is 5-10 % increases in some cheaper items, but we get a 5-10% increase in those every-time there is a shortage now.

If Rs will actually vote for something I think he should take a close to $1 trillion bipartisan bill on traditional infrastructure and then shove everything else he wants through a separate reconciliation bill.

So she doesn't have to work there, but is accepting the trade off of a flexible schedule for lower pay. That's what I hear you saying. That's not "no choice." That IS the choice. It sounds like she is willing to sacrifice her personal situation to help her kid with childcare for her grandkids.

I've said several times I don't have the answers. But I don't see 4 options up there. I see 2. The first 3 are all government support. What I see is an all or nothing ultimatum and nothing in between. Prices have continually risen over time due to a variety of factors. They will rise when another of those factors (wages) change. Or maybe it manifests itself in other ways, like fewer workers meaning poorer/less service, hours, etc.

Either way, what I'm really reacting to in all of this is the way everyone in this thread acts as if there will be no consequences for artificially raising pay or providing a living allowance, that it's all upside and no downside. I strongly disagree with that.

Pay rates are currently artificial. We don't have a fully market based system at either the bottom or the top of the pay scale.

Aren't you arguing the all or nothing with your "you deserve shit wages because you're just a college kid, or you want to watch your grandkids, or you need motivation to get a job somewhere else" arguments?

I'm fully in favor of plans to help businesses deal with sudden wage hikes. In fact, I'd argue the minimum wage shouldn't be set in stone, but instead adjusted with inflation. That way businesses wouldn't be absorbing a several dollar an hour increase all at once, but incremental changes over the years. But I'll never be in favor of telling people they deserve to live on $14,500 a year so I can get a cheaper value burger at McDonald's.

We literally know what the consequences are because we have states that do it and a federal government that did it in the past. It was a prosperous time for the middle-class in this country with higher minimum wages.

There are trade-offs with everything. A higher wage doesn't mean less profits. A company hiring less workers and offering poor service means competitors can beat them out.

Executives and shareholders have made a killing over the past couple decades. I don't know why it is so far-fetched to believe that any raises would come out of those totals.

Yes, my sister made the choice. She chose to have a baby thirty years ago. And that baby chose to have two boys with a man that abandoned her right after the second child was born. Then my niece chose to work in a restaurant to make ends meet, and my sister chose to work a job that could alternate shiftsl so that her daughter would not have to give all her earnings for child care. So I guess they chose to be poor, and do not deserve a living wage.
I have another sister that has worked for Walmart as cashier for 15 years. She chose to have mental health problems that caused her to have a hard time holding jobs. I guess she also chose to not earn a living wage.
I think it is the height of privilege that someone that I am sure is making six figures can look down on poor wage earners, and think they just chose to be poor. We must make sure those people who chose to be in that position should never make a living wage because my cheeseburger might cost me an extra 25 cents.

Sent from my SM-G996U using Tapatalk

I don't disagree with you conceptually. I'm okay paying an extra $1 for a BigMac or an extra $2 for a Red Robin burger etc. And I'm okay with my taxes going up overall to support healthcare, reducing deficit etc.

But let's define living wage. Googling tells me minimum wage in GA is $7.25 x 2080 hours = $15,000.

Living wage in GA for single adult is $15.36 x 2080 hours = $32,000 so approx double.

Living wage for family of 4, 1 adult working is $32.23 x 2080 = $67,000.

https://livingwage.mit.edu/states/13

Regardless of all the good intentions, I just don't see companies with a large portion of minimum wage workforce, able to pay living wage.

And how does it work? Single adult making living wage of $32,000 gets married, have 2 kids in 4-6 years. Is the company obligated to pay him $67,000 in 4-6 years time?

Bottom line to me is - yup, increase minimum wages. And for those companies that make enough profit want to increase their pay to living wage to attract and retain the best talent, sure go for it. But for those companies making small margins and are willing to live with any average talent, I don't see increasing to living wage working.

Yup, agree on this.

I agree with this. I may be incorrect but remember Jobs/Infrastructure bill was really the Infrastructure bill early on before Biden did some rebranding. There are obviously some pork in there.

I don't know if it's $2T - $1T = $1T worth of pork but yeah, let's do infrastructure (which IMO includes the internet, electrical grid stuff) and push the rest to the catch all Families (and Jobs) plan.

The answer is you start there. Pretty simple, isn't it?

Because there isn't nearly enough money there. There are, I'm sure, specific corporations for whom this isn't the case, but I've crunched the numbers in plenty of these discussions in the past with companies I'm familiar with. Typically the way it comes out is this; if you took 100% of profits - forget just executive compensation, but all profits - and divided it amongst the employees, their wage rate would be able to be increased by 10-15 cents per hour. It's easy to forget when looking at 'wow, look at all that CEO cash' how little you could actually do with it when spreading it among the large number of employees that work at a given company.

Why are you accounting for executive compensation as profits?

Looking ahead to ‘22 and ‘24, what do Republicans think the party’s strategy should be?

53% say the party needs to focus on message and ideas to win over more voters, but 47% say the GOP already has enough voters and should focus on pushing for changes to voting rules instead. pic.twitter.com/azXjAAKkq4

— CBS News Poll (@CBSNewsPoll) May 16, 2021

Assuming this is more or less the wording of the question posed... I know I need to give up on "them" more rapidly, but i guess I had naively been holding out hope that the whole movement to disenfranchise voters who don't support our guys/views was mostly top-down, borne of leaders who can do the math... but this suggests that it's at least close to a majority view among the GOP rank and file, set alongside an awfully generic and reasonable sounding alternative. Fun. And yikes.

I know we all "knew" this and nothing matters, etc, but the fact that the previous president has now admitted that the plan was to overthrow the election results should be a much bigger deal.

I would have thought the second group would be higher. Have there been changes in the numbers of GOP voters who believe the election was stolen? I thought I remembered it being higher than 47%. I mean, if you think this last election was stolen, then wouldn’t it make sense (within that closed system) that the right course of action is to keep them from stealing it again? Why would you bother with better messenging if you think 10 million dead people and illegal aliens are gonna vote or that Dominion machines are going to rig the election. You gotta deal with the real problem!

The data I've seen has shown that the "do you believe the election was stolen" question has become more of a "do you support the republican party" question in the eyes of many GOP supporters. They may not necessarily believe it was stolen, but they answer yes to the question when it's presented black and white because it's how they feel they should answer.

I'm not? The point is that profits are a much higher amount than executive compensation.

But, but, but, this is impossible! You can't sell burgers at an affordable price and pay a living wage!

Aggressively share this with those who think paying burger flippers a living wage will somehow result in $20 Big Macs or whatever. pic.twitter.com/sE9QDZAjBI

— What's Bothering Me Today �� �� (@BotheredBoy) May 8, 2021

I'm not paying $8.55 for that value meal.

I haven't eaten fast food in a long time so I looked up a Big Mac combo and was shocked to see it was $10. I thought it was more like $6. I'm way out of touch.

Then you're doing yourself a favor by not eating that crap. :)

Yeah. You can still get a deal at fast food by being selective off the dollar menu.

But when I treat the kids to McDonalds and just get 4 combo meals for the family, it is actually a significant expense.

It's hard to believe it costs a family of 4 around $35-40 to eat at places like Wendy's and Arby's. I guess that's part of the point about wages. It seems to me the businesses that have been so opposed to a minimum wage hike almost HAVE to raise prices even further, because that's been the argument all along about why wages can't rise, right? I buy the argument because we see it with other costs that go into the prices we pay (look at the housing market right now - the cost of lumber has caused house prices to skyrocket), so why would wages be any different?

Although, I do believe the bigger companies are far better positioned to withstand wage increases than mom and pops. I guess we'll see.

I looked at your sig and I can't help but wonder what the "Bill Gate's Challenge" is nowadays :p

Yeah, the $10 combo is why I settle for the 2//$3 stuff. Never mind that if I'm bringing it home I don't need the soda. I mean, I can buy two Domino's mediums for $12. Not doing $10 for .2 lbs of burger on a Big Mac.

Phew. I thought you were going to question my paint-chip eating dynasty.

Roe about to say bye-bye: Supreme Court takes Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade.

In 2019, McDonalds spent $5 billion to buyback stock which was at a historically high rate. They committed to buying $15 billion back over the next few years.

If you're concerned about their prices, maybe you should be asking why they are doing that which adds zero value to the company besides artificially pumping up their share prices.

Talk of a company raising wages slightly: Whoa, my Big Mac might go up 15 cents

Company spends $5 billion to buyback their own stock: *crickets*

This country is in love with hating each other.

Lori Lightfoot will only grant interviews to journalists of color

So Democrats are okay with racism these days.

You've convinced me. I'm voting only for MAGA Republicans going forward because a Democrat mayor did something silly.

Come back to me when the DNC decides to eliminate every substantive plank in its platform and replace it with "we care only about supporting Lori Lightfoot"

Of course not and this is just stupid as it empowers the racist narrative on the other side, everything like this adds to the division, but as albion mentioned, the GOP can scream louder when they fix their own house.

TBH, neither side is doing a great with inclusion right now and I am beginning to feel like I have no political home in this country these days. Its sad that seemingly everything is about sticking it to the other side and nobody really gives a damn about meaningful discussion to make it better, and when some do step up and try they get drowned out.

This path we are on leads nowhere positive and the ones leading us couldn't give a Rats ass as long as they keep their seats and rack up views on social media.

I was reading that a lot of folks used their stimulus checks to pay down revolving debt. Which is a great thing.1. Except for the big banks that rely on revolving high interest payments as a dependable revenue stream. The article said that the banks were going to be more aggressive in offering credit, etc. to try and get more customers.

And I have definitely noticed that. Several of our credit cards have, without solicitation, increased our credit limits and the like. So if I ever got really drunk and decided to spend way too much at Target and pay if off for the next ten years, I guess I can do that now :-)

1.This is also support for the idea that--by and large--if you give people money, they will make rational choices with it. The more I learn, the more I think that we should start making aid more in the form of cash payments instead of big government programs. Yeah, you will always have people who spend the money on beer instead of shoes for their kids. But no system is perfect. And I think that UBI-type things have worked out better in practice than I would have guessed..

My 21 year old daughter is getting 8-10 credit card offers a week in the mail. This started about 2 months ago. Before that, she'd get 1 offer maybe every 3-4 months.

I used my stimulus to get a Peloton.

I'm not sure of the prospects for passage, but some GOPers in Ohio have introduced a bill that would make it illegal for any entity, schools, businesses, etc., to require any vaccine. It goes so far as to ban even requesting people gt vaccinated.

I've said it before, but I'm genuinely shocked at how quickly the GOP has become anti-vax.

I guess it's not a big jump to go from anti-science (and anti-knowledge) to anti-vax.

MPGA

Make Polio Great Again

FDR approves...

I keep saying this - Trump was trying to take us back to the 1950s but the movement he spawned has morphed into trying to take us back to the 1850s. They want every person for themselves and freedom to do whatever they want, and it's government tyranny and socialism if you even consider the public interest in restricting personal freedoms. This both allows them to do things like open-carry guns with no restrictions and keep the people who don't look/think like them and who can't fend for themselves down.

The natural progression is going to be a bunch of southerners attempting to re-capture and re-settle the west coast in their own image as part of Manifest Destiny 2030, I'm guessing.

Vaccines are good for public health. If people get vaccinated, it will make America stronger. If America is stronger, it will make it harder for Russia to take over and establish a White Nationalist ethno-state. Thus, the GOP is anti-vax.

I realize that my hyperbole does not help anything.

It is born of frustration. When our greatest international enemy is spreading propaganda and that propaganda happens to match your message, why don't you reexamine your message?

Why does it not raise any alarm bells with the GOP?

What needs reexamining? The fact that Russia agrees with them and Democrats disagree is confirmation, not repudiation.
And if we take the GOP at their word as to what they view as a strong and healthy country, why wouldn’t they? Russia represents that worldview much better than Democrats do, at least when viewed through existing media filters.

It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg thing too. The Russian propaganda is designed to hue towards the GOP crazy message, so it’s going to reflect that no matter what. They do it on the left too, it just hasn’t been amplified like FOX and AON do on the right.

Trump always cozied up to the Russians, so maybe they consider them partners rather than international enemies.

Because they aren't concerned nearly as much about external enemies as internal ones. This has been going for quite a while, back to well before Trump, but in general they view Democrats as a greater enemy to what they view America as than any foreign power. If they found their message to be the same thing that Democrats were saying, it would cause them to pause and reconsider. Russia isn't on the same radar screen.

As somebody who isn't a Republican and voted for Biden, even I wouldn't call Russia an enemy and I agree with Edward64 that China is more dangerous to US interests, though as a globalist I'm also not that concerned about those interests in the grander scheme of things. But point being, Russia is not viewed by, at the very least, a sizable minority the way they are often described on this forum.

Key Democrats aim to craft a health-care public option bill as Biden excludes it from recovery plans

I'm actually rather surprised how little attention healthcare has received so far in Biden's administration, given how much attention healthcare policy was given in the elections (especially Democratic primaries)

Until the Court rules, it's an open question whether the ACA will continue beyond this year. I, too, am surprised Dems have largely ignored this threat.

dola

Arizona Republicans passed a bill stripping the powers from the Sec of State, currently a Dem, and giving them to the Attorney General, a Republican.

I'm not sure democracy is going to survive.

Interesting. Wasn't this dismissed as a preposterous "conspiracy theory" before Biden was elected?

Biden orders closer review of Covid origins as U.S. intel weighs Wuhan lab leak theory

It is dead or dying at least. My wife and I are only 52 but are starting to talk about what happens if we go full Orwell 1984 where could we easily retire to outside the US.

My understanding is new information came out saying 3 workers in a Wuhan lab were sick enough to go to the hospital last year, info that China covered up and the WHO may or may not have assisted them in that. In addition the conspiracy theories last year were more entrenched in the thought that this was created as a weapon. Sounds like the current theory is this was more of a leak or accident.

Regardless, I think what we have seen a lot during this pandemic is people seem to have forgotten or ignored as new info emerges experts have a right to change their mind or alter their theories. People are so quick to grab a 5 month old sound bite to try and discredit someone who usually is on the other side of the aisle. It doesn't help anyone and just further muddies the waters.

Yes, the crap I saw all over social media last year is that this was deliberately leaked by China. And, back then everything was literally a theory. I suppose chastising someone for looking into something only when some bit of verifiable information to work off of would support further investigation is a normal thing these days, but it certainly doesn't validate any wild claims made a year ago.

Also, as far as I can tell, the end game on the right is an "own the libs" moment to support Trump calling it the China Virus last year. That's all I've seen so far.

I'm seeing people say they feel frustrated by the slow workings of politics.

Politics in a democracy is deliberative. The checks and balances intended to create stability also create a slow process. Panic doesn't help.

In an autocracy, things can move swiftly, or even instantly

— Teri Kanefield (@Teri_Kanefield) May 27, 2021

Not a bad thing to remember. It can be frustrating as a liberal to see the Dems be so slow and deliberate after watching the GOP.

At this point, I still care more about respecting conservative rights than about enacting liberal policies. And it helps to be reminded of the importance of that.

President Joe Biden, chocolate chocolate chip ice cream in hand, tells @albamonica at Honey Hut Ice Cream, "I can’t imagine anyone voting against establishing a commission on the greatest assault since the Civil War on the Capitol. But at any rate, I came for ice cream." pic.twitter.com/gT1hI7mRL3

— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) May 27, 2021

We sort of low key elected Ted Lasso president.

Biden plans retroactive hike in capital-gains taxes, so it may be already too late for investors to avoid it: report

Is a retroactive tax hike even legal?

C’mon, man!

I don't expect this to happen. There need to be things that Manchin can demand be removed and I expect this will be one of those things.

Even if it is legal, it is very bad policy.

People have to be able to make plans based on what the law is.

You always plan with the idea that the law could change tomorrow. But that's a risk you bear. I don't think that you should have to bear the risk of retroactive changes.

People made good faith financial decisions based on what the law was at the time. You can't pull the rug out from under them, IMO.

Good thing we get up in arms here about the important stuff, like capital gains tax hikes. I'm sure everyone who is complaining in this thread is going to be super-impacted

In my world, capital gains should be taxed as regular income. And payroll taxes should be eliminated and income taxes raised to make up the difference. So I'm totally on the left on this issue.

But I don't like changing the rules in the middle of the game when people relied on those rules in good faith. That concern goes beyond this particular issue.

Pretty much where I am at as well(although I would add wiping the slate clean with deductions too). Payroll taxes are regressive taxes. And I'm not against the idea of any tax raises. I've said many times we need to balance the budget whether with tax increases or spending cuts.

I'm kind of worried about if they allow retroactive capital gains, what else could they make retroactive? Could I face a retroactive fee in the future for something that I did a year ago?

This will never happen, but the corporate tax rate should be zero, the federal income tax and IRS should be abolished. Impose a national sales tax (exempting food and medicine). The poorest would not pay much annual tax at all, while those who consume the most (including corporations) would pay the majority of taxes.

Since we are talking capitol gains, maybe someone can answer this.

My in laws have had a farm in their family for over 200 years. My wife and her sister have both told them we don't want it, and my in laws should sell it and enjoy retirement, so they are. They got an offer for about 10 million, which is split 50/25/25 between my in laws and 2 cousins, with in laws getting 50%

So they are retired. Father in law made a decent living, but not anything over the top, certainly not a million a year. This is basically a one time thing for them. Will they be taxed the 48% on the sale?

I m a huge fan of a flat rate commodities tax, which like you say, let's everyone contribute within their means and it would definitely stimulate spending.

IANATL, but I believe that would fall into a long term capital gain, where the max tax rate is 20% on amounts >$500k for a married couple.

And 75% of federal spending gets eliminated?

dola

The vote on the Jan 6 commission was 54-35, which of course means it failed.

I wouldn't start exempting things like food and medicine. I wouldn't exempt anything. When the lobbyists are done with that, a new $100,000 Tesla will be exempt as "medicinal" because the tinted windows help prevent skin cancer.

A VAT on everything, and everyone gets back the equivalent of taxes on $50,000 in spending. I could be down with that.

The problem is that the rate would have to be really high, so then you are encouraging a black market. So there would be enforcement costs for sure.

Most backers of a national sales tax of VAT won't grapple with the really high rate that would be required. The fact is that most of the federal budget is either mandatory, like interest payments, or popular, like SS, Medicare, and defense. There's no realistic way to get to a budget where even a 20% sales tax would come close to balanced.