The Tax Policy Center (TPC) estimates that the Sanders tax proposals would increase federal revenue by $15.3 trillion over their first decade (6.4 percent of cumulative gross domestic product [GDP] over that period) and by an additional $25.1 trillion over the subsequent 10 years (7.0 percent of cumulative GDP), before accounting for any changes in the cost of federal borrowing or macroeconomic feedback effects.1 Approximately two-fifths of the estimated revenue increase would come from a new employer payroll tax on all earnings and an across-the-board increase in income taxes, which would pay for a new, government-administered, health insurance program. Net increases in individual income, payroll, and estate taxes paid by high-income and high-wealth taxpayers would account for another quarter of the increase, as would the elimination of tax breaks for health care– related expenditures. Higher taxes paid by businesses, a new tax on financial transactions, and a new tax on carbon would   account for the remainder. The proposal would raise taxes at every income level, but high- income taxpayers would face the biggest increases, both in dollar amount and as a percentage of income. Overall, the plan would raise tax burdens by an average of nearly $9,000, thereby lowering average after-tax income by 12.4 percent. However, the highest-income taxpayers (the top 0.1 percent, or those with income over $3.7 million in 2015 dollars) would experience an average increase in tax burdens of more than $3 million in 2017, nearly 45 percent of their $6.9 million average after-tax income. Households in the middle quintile of the income distribution would see an average tax increase of almost $4,700, or 8.5 percent of their average after-tax income. Those in the bottom quintile would experience smaller tax increases, averaging $165, or 1.3 percent of their average after-tax income.

Mr. Sanders’s proposals would increase federal taxes by $15.3 trillion over the next decade, according to the Tax Policy Center. Mr. Sanders concentrates his tax increases on high-income households, which would face sharply higher levies on their wages, business income, capital gains and estates, as well as more limits on their deductions. The top 0.1%—those with incomes of $3.7 million under an expanded definition—would pay an average federal tax rate of 63.7% in 2017, up from 34.2%.

The middle 20% of households would face an average tax increase of $4,692 in 2017 and lose 8.5% of after-tax income. The lowest-income households would lose, too, but they would come out even by 2025.

“Sanders is clearly betting that people are willing to pay for his expansive new welfare state,” said Leonard Burman, director of the Tax Policy Center, who was a Treasury Department official under President Bill Clinton. “There’s a giant tax increase, mostly on the rich, but everyone would pay more.”

I'm ok with investing $1.5t a year into the well-being of our people.

I'm ok with investing $1.5t a year into the well-being of our people.

You call it "the social contract" as if the concept is anything more than philosophers' ephemeral catch-all for government policy. Taxation is one of the most obvious forms of a social contract, but it certainly doesn't dictate specific terms; it can't be quantified, so it's irrelevant.

And on the other hand, in the face of many leading economists disparaging Sanders' plan as a net detriment to the country, wouldn't the same social contract demand we listen to them?

Well if we can spend trillions on unnecessary wars, we can spend trillions on necessary things our people need.

Because when fewer people are drowning in medical bills

Gluttony is bad you know

Quote from: Ghost of Reach on March 04, 2016, 06:12:59 PM

Quote from: PSU on March 04, 2016, 04:54:59 PM

64% for earners over 4 mil? That's a fucking joke.

Punish people for being successful and they'll leave. Happened in Jersey, and it'll happen to the entire US.

Gluttony is bad you know, at least the money won't go to waste.

Whats my incentive to want to be a millionaire if the MAJORITY of my hard earned money is taken away?

Gluttony is bad you know, at least the money won't go to waste.

What a stupid thing to say.

Becoming wealthy, if not excessively wealthy, should be everyone's ideal end goal. Being poor never helped anyone.