We’re talking actions limited to something one human could achieve - so not wishes, but could be something amazing or rare like “become president”

  • Soulcreator@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    One of the big issues I see with that proposal is that at some point, due to inflation an annual income in the ball park of 5 million dollars a year will be considered ‘middle class’. And then the average person will be hit with substantial taxes from a then archaic tax law.

    At that point you’ll need a constitutional amendment to shift the goal post which is nearly impossible to do such. (At least at this moment in time it is.)

    At that point the budget would likely have finally balanced itself out due to the higher tax rates. So of course there will probably be politicians arguing against making this change as it will effectively kill the federal budget, because shifting the tax laws will mean the government will be taking in substantially less.

    It’s a super well intentioned idea at the moment but it’s really a disaster in the making for a future generation.

    • LesserAbe@lemmy.worldOP
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      6 months ago

      You could tie it to a defined benchmark like X multiples of the current cost of living.

      In the Mondragon cooperative (last I knew) compensation per role is defined as a multiple of some common base rate, and the chief executive will never make more than a certain amount over the lowest paid employee.

    • cabbage@piefed.social
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      6 months ago

      Progressive tax is normal in most functional countries, it’s not rocket science.

      Basically you define X as a base sum that needs to be controlled for inflation. Minimum wage can be 2X, whereas 100% taxation might be reached at an income of 300X. In this scenario, nobody could earn more than 150 times minimum wage, and manipulating the calculation of X to make the rich richer would also benefit everyone else.

      A bigger challenge is that billionaire scum tend not to have income, only loans, so they don’t pay tax at all. But that’s also easily fixed if there’s political will.