You can’t cut any taxes or programs to fund your idea. Nothing else in your government is going to change. It can’t be a tax that you avoid somehow. The money comes from you and similar people in your situation. Don’t try to get around it in some way.
What would you pay more taxes to support?
Universal Health Care
This. Absolute game changer. If my job gave me the money they spend on my behalf for the crappy health insurance they provide, it would likely result in an actual increase in my net pay after the increased taxes to pay for the program. Cut out hundreds of thousands of parasitic middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Throw out the crazy quilt of non-doctors who decide what medications and procedures are are covered. Reduce billing staff because of the major paperwork reduction (don’t need to deal with hundreds of different insurance plans). And do away with coding - the letters and numbers on a bill that can drastically change a procedure’s cost to the patient.
“Everybody who supports single-payer healthcare says, ‘Look at all this money we would be saving from insurance and paperwork.’ That represents 1 million, 2 million, 3 million jobs of people who are working at Blue Cross Blue Shield or Kaiser or other places. What are we doing with them? Where are we employing them?”
The same things were said when industrial robots replaced assembly line workers, when farm equipment replaced agricultural labor, and now with AI systems. People still need jobs. But looking at the big picture, those improvements made sense. Most displaced workers found other employment.
Our medical system costs much more than it needs to, creates anxiety about long term medical needs in “at will” employment, has forced millions to declare bankruptcy over medical debt, destroyed the financial security of millions more, and in some cases, has lead to patients who opted to forgo medical treatment because it wasn’t covered. And when payment for care is tied to a job, that leads to age discrimination - older employees cost more to insure.
Taxes were meant to pay for things everyone needs. I can’t think of a better example of that than medical care.
(Edit for clarity)
Single p(l)ayer healthcare.
Pre-k childcare
Court room staffers
I generally recommend seeing a doctor (multiplayer) instead of single player. There are cases of doctors doing surgery on themselves, but it’s as rare as it is dangerous.
We have single player at home already.
Thanks for the catch XD
Public healthcare, public education, public internet
Jury duty stipends indexed to cost of living.
Today, in my county, you get $20 a day. That won’t even cover parking near the courthouse.
Serving on a jury shouldn’t prevent you from being able to make rent for the month.
Funding the IRS to go after rich tax cheats.
Education. Mental health facilities. Drug treatment. Healthcare.
Let’s do one that wouldn’t end up saving the taxpayer in the long run.
Universal access to legal council.
Too many matters are not brought to the court which probably should be because of costs to the litigants, and far too many times are costs to the litigants used as a weapon to keep people from exercizing their rights under threat of getting buried.
It’s the worst kept secret that whoever has more money is gonna win the case 9/10 times and making lawyers salaried public servants as opposed to hired mercenary litigants, and providing access to legal services and council for free at point of service, would go a long way towards balancing the litigious inequality that is often experienced in the US.
So yeah, I’d pay more in taxes for the little guy to have the deck not be so blatantly stacked against them in the judicial system.
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Better public education
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Better public transit
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Fully funding the IRS to go after tax evaders
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Public healthcare
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Every social safety net we can get. I’m in the US with near zero safety nets.
Funding for public defenders. They’re chronicly overworked and understaffed.
job / income safety nets
universal health care
better public transpo and infra to support
public internet / utilities
housing
libraries
It’s not so much about paying more, but rather directing where my taxes go. I already pay out the ass in taxes where I live, I’d just rather see my hard-earned income spent on public comprehensive healthcare… primary and undergrad education… automating as much production as possible… universal basic income.
Not blowing people up. Not digging for oil. Not bailing out corporations. And CERTAINLY not funding police with military surplus used to oppress and murder our very own citizens.
The people using my money for those purposes, and more, can go Fuck themselves to death. Preferably in the least enjoyable way possible.
An few orders of magnitude more IRS agents and people armed with pitchforks pointed at the oligarchy and corruption.
Anything that doesn’t just funnel money back to millionaires. I’ve never understood people’s aversion to tax, especially when they should be focusing on the rigged two party system that is at the core of the wastage.
If I have to choose one, universal basic income, it solves a lot of problems. It can help people in need, but if you want to be selfish about it, at least it lowers the odds that someone will rob your house.
As for people worried about making sure it goes to the right people, I would rather pay a few scammers than risk having someone in genuine need suffer
Auditing the government and its agencies
I still can’t believe we can’t get a completed audit of the DoD. Just a trillion dollar black hole.
