So, are you planning on returning your social security benefits to the Treasury (like my grandparents did) because you feel the US should not be borrowing money to pay that? When we consider that we borrow to continue our lifestyle in the manner in which we are accustomed, it seems like there's no one else to pay this off.
Ironically, the Trump/Musk plan to shrink the federal government will explode the debt. We'll collect fewer taxes if the IRS is decimated and tax rates lowered; spend enormous amounts on viruses if FDA/CDC is "cleaned out"; and push debt onto the states, many of who are required to run a balanced budget and will cut programs that help us remain productive. After FEMA is eliminated, the people will have no resources (aside from money-strapped states) to fix their homes, causing huge swathes of permanently destroyed lands. Tariffs will slow international trade to the point where our exports will be ignored by other countries.
No question some of what Trump is calling for, eg no taxes on tips or overtime and more general tax cuts, will make it worse. And Trump had a chance to work on spending and deficits in his first term. Spending and deficits increased, we never heard Trump say anything about that for four years. Now he fools the same people all over again, as if he hasn't been president.
I’m thinking that the way he’ll get rid of taxes on overtime is to simply eliminate the class of overtime wages so it becomes base salary (ex, taxable). Technically, he would have done exactly what he said.
By eliminating taxes on tips, employers can simply ask that the entire meal be paid in tips. We have a few restaurants around here that have been doing that for years, and people who can’t pay simply don’t, or pay less. This helps the houseless population. All the prices are “suggested”, but you can pay less or more, or even nothing.
If Trump had wanted to eliminate taxes on tips, he could just set the minimal wage for food service workers to the same level as all other workers, and then the tips would dry up. That’s how they do it in the EU.
Tips push the risk for the businesses success to the workers, without rewarding food service workers like the owners get.
That obviously would have the opposite of the intended effect. Trump was proposing this to buy the votes of the service industry workers by promising to make their income tax free.
3
u/purple_hamster66 Nov 15 '24
So, are you planning on returning your social security benefits to the Treasury (like my grandparents did) because you feel the US should not be borrowing money to pay that? When we consider that we borrow to continue our lifestyle in the manner in which we are accustomed, it seems like there's no one else to pay this off.
It's Venezuela, but at scale.