I’m not in the US so any comparisons are pretty much worthless, but 30k/year sounds just ridiculous. Myself and my wife make slightly above average by local standards but if we’d need to cough up another 2k/month for insurance that just wouldn’t happen. With mortage and other living expenses with kids there’s practically nothing left from what we make. Sure, we could cut our expenses a bit, we’re living pretty comfortably, but there’s no way we could squeeze 2k/month out of our “non necessary expenses”.
But, again not being in the US, that’s taken care of via taxes. 30+% is a lot out of salary but at least I don’t have to save for college fund nor worry about visit to hospital/doctor.
That’s the wild thing to me: we are taxed nearly as much but we don’t get jack shit in return. I’d gladly pay even more taxes if it guaranteed things like health care and education.
Yeah, my household tax rate last year was ~32% after Federal, State, and Local. That’s not counting the other taxes I paid on gas, or fees for my car, or property taxes. I would not be surprised if 50% of my income was taxes.
Can you explain to us noobs in Europe why you guys continue to let this happen and continuously vote in people who keep selling trickle down fairy tales?
Because an uneducated bible-thumping yeehawdist’s is given the same (if not more) weight than a well-researched and rational vote.
My unpopular opinion from the last 26 years is that equality in voting means pandering to bottom half of the population. If you want an intelligent and effective government, it needs to be run by intelligent and effective people. Democracy is representative of the people, so if you have everyone voting equally, then at best, you’re going to end up with a 50% intelligent and effective government.
I honestly don’t know how to solve this problem. I can’t see a way that you can weight a vote by intelligence or “connection to reality” without having a system that is very vulnerable to oppression, and still protects the rights of the morons and sheep who want to get rid of social services while they are receving substantial welfare.
I’m not advocating for removing or watering down anyone’s right to vote, I’m just calling attention to a fundamental flaw in the system.
I’m not in the US so any comparisons are pretty much worthless, but 30k/year sounds just ridiculous. Myself and my wife make slightly above average by local standards but if we’d need to cough up another 2k/month for insurance that just wouldn’t happen. With mortage and other living expenses with kids there’s practically nothing left from what we make. Sure, we could cut our expenses a bit, we’re living pretty comfortably, but there’s no way we could squeeze 2k/month out of our “non necessary expenses”.
But, again not being in the US, that’s taken care of via taxes. 30+% is a lot out of salary but at least I don’t have to save for college fund nor worry about visit to hospital/doctor.
That’s the wild thing to me: we are taxed nearly as much but we don’t get jack shit in return. I’d gladly pay even more taxes if it guaranteed things like health care and education.
That’s the wild thing, your taxes are used to support the tax cuts for Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos in return.
Yeah, my household tax rate last year was ~32% after Federal, State, and Local. That’s not counting the other taxes I paid on gas, or fees for my car, or property taxes. I would not be surprised if 50% of my income was taxes.
Bezos paid like 0.9% I think. Fucking ridiculous.
Can you explain to us noobs in Europe why you guys continue to let this happen and continuously vote in people who keep selling trickle down fairy tales?
Because an uneducated bible-thumping yeehawdist’s is given the same (if not more) weight than a well-researched and rational vote.
My unpopular opinion from the last 26 years is that equality in voting means pandering to bottom half of the population. If you want an intelligent and effective government, it needs to be run by intelligent and effective people. Democracy is representative of the people, so if you have everyone voting equally, then at best, you’re going to end up with a 50% intelligent and effective government.
I honestly don’t know how to solve this problem. I can’t see a way that you can weight a vote by intelligence or “connection to reality” without having a system that is very vulnerable to oppression, and still protects the rights of the morons and sheep who want to get rid of social services while they are receving substantial welfare.
I’m not advocating for removing or watering down anyone’s right to vote, I’m just calling attention to a fundamental flaw in the system.
Because Americans have been trained to think that they’re just one step away from the billionaires, and have absolutely zero class consciousness.
In the US I am taxed 35% and still have to pay for insurance. Endless war isn’t cheap, apparently.