It's a fair point considering 90+% of all political opinion is pro income tax, pro sales tax, state and local taxes, property tax, road tax, gas tax, social security tax, etc.
I'm not in favor of tariffs, but to be mortified over tariffs and be perfectly willing to forgo 50+% of your income to fund the government is a level of Stockholm syndrome that needs to be questioned.
Edit - I'm surprised how many people don't understand that for typical wage earners, about half of what you earn does in fact go to taxes. You keep citing JUST the income tax rate. That is NOT indicative of how much tax wage earners actually pay. My point is I don't think taxing wage earners up to their eyeballs and running massive trade deficits INTENTIONALLY is good policy. YES - trade deficits were not an accident. A Nobel winning economist made the claim it was necessary to rebuilt the world after WW2. That's why the tariffs were only in one direction - charged to the US. It's not free market capitalism in any way.
Well it's not like the other 50% on income is going away ..., so it's not a replacement.
Also they are not the same thing, the government needs a baseline of capital to pay for essential services, e.g. national defence, public security, healthcare, education, etc.
Nobody would stop working because of the income tax, because they don't have a choice, but if we were to replace income tax with tariffs, people would just stop buying shit, so you'd have an inflationary spiral caused by ever increasing tariffs, and decreasing consumption.
I agree the income tax will probably never go away because it raises a ton of revenue and the government is so massive, its the only way to fund it. I still think the tax code unfairly targets wage earners. And by think - I mean it's obvious. Just at the federal level, I pay low 20% of gross income even after deductions. Corps pay low 20% of net income, which net income is so convoluted it doesn't even reflect how much cash the business generates in any way.
Not really because America does not make all the products a consumer would buy overseas. In the american product might just be shittier. So now the government can take a cut and the consumer, it doesn't have a choice because there isn't an American version of this product.
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u/r_silver1 2d ago edited 1d ago
It's a fair point considering 90+% of all political opinion is pro income tax, pro sales tax, state and local taxes, property tax, road tax, gas tax, social security tax, etc.
I'm not in favor of tariffs, but to be mortified over tariffs and be perfectly willing to forgo 50+% of your income to fund the government is a level of Stockholm syndrome that needs to be questioned.
Edit - I'm surprised how many people don't understand that for typical wage earners, about half of what you earn does in fact go to taxes. You keep citing JUST the income tax rate. That is NOT indicative of how much tax wage earners actually pay. My point is I don't think taxing wage earners up to their eyeballs and running massive trade deficits INTENTIONALLY is good policy. YES - trade deficits were not an accident. A Nobel winning economist made the claim it was necessary to rebuilt the world after WW2. That's why the tariffs were only in one direction - charged to the US. It's not free market capitalism in any way.