How to Raise Revenue without Harming Middle Class - By Joel D. Joseph

Found here. Our comments in bold.

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Implicit in this article is the assumption that revenue NEEDS to be raised. We do not assent to this assumption. Government doesn't lack money, it lacks discipline. We have DOGE, and its mission is completely contrary to the author's premise. We agree with DOGE: Cut wasteful spending, stop fraud and abuse. 

In addition, in typical liberal fashion the author's solution for raising revenue is to raise taxes. This has never worked, but it's the sole focus of the Left.

Lastly, the author presumes without evidence that increasing taxes in one area will not affect another area. For example, he recommends increasing corporate taxes. But corporate taxes are just another cost of doing business, and the cost of business is included in the products the corporation sells. The consumer (i.e. middle class) pays all taxes via the increased cost of the product, so raising corporate taxes is a defacto increase in cost of living for the middle class.

We think the author actually knows this, but because he's parroting the Leftist narrative in pursuit of The Agenda, he's quite happy to deceive his readers.

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In order to save Social Security, raise revenue and reduce the federal deficit, we don't have to impose tariffs and gut many federal programs. (We want tariffs and we want federal programs gutted.)

The cap on Social Security taxes (FICA) is now $168,600. If you earn more than that, there is no additional Social Security tax. (Because there's no additional benefits. The SS system is predicated on capping the tax commensurate with the future benefits. If the cap is removed, it moves the SS system fully into a welfare program and can no longer be represented as "insurance.")

Multibillionaire Warren Buffett suggests that we should remove this cap and tax all income for Social Security. (He can get out his checkbook and do this right now.)

Buffett can afford to pay a little more tax. So can Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos. (Tax is not predicated on what people can "afford." In fact, government has no business deciding tax policy on what people can "afford.")

Most people earning more than $168,600 can afford to pay a little more Social Security tax. ("A little more." Harrumph. Removing the cap means 15% of every paycheck dollar goes to government. That's not "a little more.")

According to the Social Security Trustees, removing the cap would raise an estimated $3.2 trillion over 10 years or about $330 billion per year. (Likely, it will raise a lot less, because people will engage in avoidance strategies.)

This additional revenue would close about 53 percent of the 75-year funding gap for Social Security. (True believer...)

Another proposal Warren Buffett has supported is raising the full retirement age slowly to age 70. (i.e., a benefit cut. The Left perennially accuses Republicans of wanting to cut SS, yet leftists are the ones who actually do want to cut it.)

Currently, the full retirement age is 66 and one-half. With life expectancy increasing, people are living longer and spending more years in retirement. Gradually increasing the full retirement age will help increase the Social Security Trust Fund (There is no money in the Trust Fund. It contains government bonds, IOUs, which need to be paid back.)

so that future generations can have a secure retirement income. (53% means a 47% shortfall. Raising the retirement age to 70 does not fix the system.)

With fewer private pensions, and with more people relying solely on Social Security to fund their retirement, we must make changes to Social Security taxes (Increases.)

and then gradually increase the age of retirement. (Cuts.)

Corporate Taxes

During the first Trump administration, the corporate tax rate was cut from 28% to 21%. This cost the Treasury more than $100 billion per year. (It "cost" the treasury nothing. The money belongs to the business, and a tax cut leaves the money with the business that earned it.)

The top personal tax rate is now 37%. Why should corporations pay a lower rate than humans? (The top marginal tax rate is not actually paid by anyone. High wage earners, a relatively small number of earners, are the ones affected by the highest tax bracket. But a substantial number of workers pay no income tax at all. 

Most workers pay a comparatively low percentage of their income to taxes. In 2020 the total income reported on 157.5 million returns was $12.5 trillion, and the total tax paid was $1.7 trillion. That works out to an average tax rate of 13.6%.

The author is attempting to deceive us.)

The Supreme Court ruled that corporations have constitutional rights and should be treated the same as individuals, not better than individuals. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). (It did no such thing. The organization Citizens United had produced a film that was highly critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

Because the release of the film coincided with the restrictive final period prior to the democratic primary prescribed by McCain-Feingold, a lower court ruled that the film was a political contribution and therefore subject to the prohibitions contained in McCain-Feingold. The questions presented to the Supreme court were: 

1. Whether challenges to the disclosure requirements imposed on "electioneering communications" by McCain-Feingold were resolved by the court challenge to McCain-Feingold (McConnell v. FEC). 
2. Whether McCain-Feingold's disclosure requirements impose an unconstitutional burden when applied to electioneering communications, because such communications are protected "political speech" and not regulable “campaign speech” per Buckley v. Valeo. 
3. Whether the law requires a clear plea for action to vote for or against a candidate. 
4. Whether a broadcast feature-length documentary movie that is sold on DVD, shown in theaters, and accompanied by a compendium book is to be treated as an advertisement, or whether the movie is not subject to regulation as an electioneering communication. 

So, the actual issue boils down to whether or not a film that was critical of a political candidate, but did not advocate for a particular candidate, amounts to a political contribution. The court ruled that it was not. 

What this means is that the Court did not engage in judicial activism, they did not cave to big business money, and they did not grant "personhood" to corporations. Nor did they overturn 100 years of precedents [as if that is an automatically bad thing to do – see the Dred Scott decision, for example]. 

They simply decided that a moviemaker is not forbidden to make a film critical of a political candidate.)

Corporations don't have to pay college tuition, childcare or buy food; but people do. (Oh. Corporations don't have to buy anything. 100% profit, we guess?)

The U.S. Department of the Treasury projects that increasing the corporate tax rate back to 28% would raise approximately $1.4 trillion in revenue over 10 years. Chicken feed. We are happy to use the same rhetoric as the Left does when characterizing DOGE cuts.)

Raising the corporate income tax to 37%, or equal to what people pay, would raise $3.2 trillion over ten years. (This dude is clueless.)

Our national debt is now over $36 trillion and rising. Increasing corporate income taxes will significantly help pay down the deficit. (Debt. Deficit. The author seems confused.

And by the way, tax increases have never decreased the debt or the deficit. Ever.)

Capital Gains Taxes

Long-term capital gains are generally taxed at 15%. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates that capital gains tax treatment costs the federal government from $120-150 billion per year or $1.2 to $1.5 trillion over ten years. (Chicken feed. And again, it doesn't "cost" the government, because the money doesn't belong to it.)

In 2011, President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13531 establishing the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (the Simpson-Bowles Commission) to identify "policies to improve the fiscal situation in the medium term and to achieve fiscal sustainability over the long run". (Um, yeah, how's that been going? Obama presided over a historic thing, the very first trillion dollar deficit, a string of them, despite revenue increasing every year.)

The Commission's Final Report recommended that we should eliminate the preferential tax rate for long-term capital gains. This proposal was never implemented.

Why should a Wall Street trader pay a lower tax rate than a blue-collar worker who toils for 40 hours a week or more building houses, manufacturing cars or repairing your plumbing problems? (Again, average income tax rate is 13.6%.)

All income should be treated the same. (Good. Then lower personal and corporate income tax nominal rates to 15% to match capital gains.)

It would make more sense to charge a higher tax rate on capital gains than for workers who use their muscles and brains for work.

Carried Interest

The "carried interest loophole" refers to favorable tax treatment for certain compensation received by private equity, venture capital and hedge-fund managers. The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that the carried interest loophole costs the treasury between one and two billion dollars per year. (Chicken feed.)

This is a variant of the capital gains loophole and both should be closed.

Conclusion

If all of these tax changes are made, the federal government will be able to pay off the federal deficit and strengthen the Social Security Trust Fund without costing the middle class a dime. (We know that more money taken by the government does neither.)