Government Efficiency (2 Viewers)

[RobF]

I think this topic deserves its own thread, both to discuss generally the topic of government efficiency, and specifically the so-called 'Department of Government Efficiency' and the incoming Trump administration's aims to "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures and restructure Federal Agencies".

The announcements have been covered in the The Trump Cabinet and key post thread, but to recap, Trump has announced that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will work together on a not-actually-an-official-government-Department of Government Efficiency, which is intended to work with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to "drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before," with the 'Department' to conclude its work "no later than July 4, 2026."

Musk has previously said that the federal budget could be reduced by "at least $2 trillion", and Ramaswarmy, during his presidential campaign, said he would fire more than 75% of the federal work force and disband agencies including the Department of Education and the FBI.

 

[TampaJoe]

You didn’t pay any attention to his fraud case in NY, did you? He doesn’t do “legitimate” at all, never has. Not in business, not in his personal life, and certainly not in politics.

I didn’t know we were talking about Trump specifically. His fraud case in NY? You mean the 3 misdemeanors turned into 34 felony counts? Hell even Andrew Cuomo said it was lawfare. Those the “fraud” counts? Or were you talking about the fraud counts that had no victims? I was in the real estate business working for a developer for 10 years. You do realize that lending institutions do not rely on the developers financial statements when making lending decisions. They other own due diligence. They do their own valuations. Anyone who has done any of these types of deals knows that. Anyone.

There were many reasons not to vote for Trump. The NY AG and the DA shouldn’t use the law to pursue their political enemies. Now they are all running scared afraid Trump will do to them exactly what they attempted to do to him. How ironic.

Me. I think all this lawfare BS needs to stop. Beat your political rivals the old fashioned way. At the ballot box.

For the record. I never liked Trump. I also don’t care for people who act like Trump. I’m speaking about the people who abuse the power of their office for purely political purposes.

 

[MT15]

I didn’t know we were talking about Trump specifically. His fraud case in NY? You mean the 3 misdemeanors turned into 34 felony counts? Hell even Andrew Cuomo said it was lawfare. Those the “fraud” counts? Or were you talking about the fraud counts that had no victims? I was in the real estate business working for a developer for 10 years. You do realize that lending institutions do not rely on the developers financial statements when making lending decisions. They other own due diligence. They do their own valuations. Anyone who has done any of these types of deals knows that. Anyone.

There were many reasons not to vote for Trump. The NY AG and the DA shouldn’t use the law to pursue their political enemies. Now they are all running scared afraid Trump will do to them exactly what they attempted to do to him. How ironic.

Me. I think all this lawfare BS needs to stop. Beat your political rivals the old fashioned way. At the ballot box.

For the record. I never liked Trump. I also don’t care for people who act like Trump. I’m speaking about the people who abuse the power of their office for purely political purposes.

I knew you would defend him. You’re a Maga supporter who just doesn’t want to admit it.

What Trump did was illegal. Full stop. He didn’t do what everybody else does, he did it 100x worse. And the victims were the taxpayers of NY state and city who were swindled out of tax revenue, and the insurance companies who were swindled out of premiums and the banks who were swindled out of interest points. Because they were willing victims doesn’t matter. This is why if a man beats up his wife, he gets prosecuted even if she doesn’t want to press charges, as long as there is sufficient evidence.

The fact that you want to allow billionaires to keep breaking the law with impunity says a lot about your world view. Did you even consider that? This is how the uber wealthy get away with crimes. Because people like you will excuse them.

Oh, and Andrew Cuomo is just another crook. So spare me his opinion.

 

[bird]

The original question was regarding individual taxation.

“Perhaps he is taking advantage of legitimate tax preference items passed by the legislature and signed into law by Potuses over the years. Tax preferences designed and often passed in a bipartisan fashion to encourage the purchase of equipment, business growth and investment, construction etc.” - direct from YOUR post. Please note the word “investment”.

 

[UriUT]

I suggested nothing of the kind. I suggested seeking the opinions and tapping the knowledge of people in the field. In my experience they often fall into two groups. They are either open to change and often eager to change or they are resistant to change. Maybe they resist change because they believe that it won’t be effective. I dunno.

Getting gaslit isn't a surprising endpoint after challenging a person to apply some reasoning.

As for the rest of your post, stick to stating what you think and stop putting words in my mouth. I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I don’t totally agree with either party. I’m a right of center independent conservative.

Ha! The point was sky written for you. In long prose. In short form. Through examples. Through inductive reasoning. It can be lasered into your eyes, and it wouldn't matter. And then you continue on with the same flawed, "magical" thinking.

Comically enough that you say this. It's emblematic to what you stated here after I questioned, "Solve this math question for me....". It gets completely misinterpreted and then ignored. There is simply zero effort towards understanding. Zero curiosity. Someone who wants to be reasoned after being told that they have missed the point would be curious. "Why did he ask that question?" "What does math have to do with anything?" Further, "Why didn't he give me a specific math question?" "Is it simply, '2+2'?". "Why was he intentionally vague?" "How can I solve a math question if he didn't give me one?" "Did it have anything to do with all his and other's points made prior?"

Zero effort. Zero curiosity. Zero applied critical thoughts.

 

[bird]

I knew you would defend him. You’re a Maga supporter who just doesn’t want to admit it.

What Trump did was illegal. Full stop. He didn’t do what everybody else does, he did it 100x worse. And the victims were the taxpayers of NY state and city who were swindled out of tax revenue, and the insurance companies who were swindled out of premiums and the banks who were swindled out of interest points. Because they were willing victims doesn’t matter. This is why if a man beats up his wife, he gets prosecuted even if she doesn’t want to press charges, as long as there is sufficient evidence.

The fact that you want to allow billionaires to keep breaking the law with impunity says a lot about your world view. Did you even consider that? This is how the uber wealthy get away with crimes. Because people like you will excuse them.

Oh, and Andrew Cuomo is just another crook. So spare me his opinion.

You are wasting your time. Joe supports those who support Trump. This allows him to support whatever alleged policies Trump and his cronies vomit up while claiming he “doesn’t support Trump.”

 

[UriUT]

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www.washingtonpost.com

“The Triumph of Injustice,” by economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman of the University of California at Berkeley, presents a first-of-its kind analysis of Americans’ effective tax rates since the 1960s. It finds that in 2018, the average effective tax rate paid by the richest 400 families in the country was 23 percent, a full percentage point lower than the 24.2 percent rate paid by the bottom half of American households.

 

[Sendai]

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www.washingtonpost.com

Yeah, that’s simply garbage.

Given that the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3% of income taxes.

“The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.”

Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2025 Update

New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

taxfoundation.org

The study you posted distorts by using unrealized gains. That’s not income.

We have a wonderfully progressive income tax system.

 

[RobF]

Yeah, that’s simply garbage.

Given that the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3% of income taxes.

“The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.”

Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2025 Update

New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

taxfoundation.org

The study you posted distorts by using unrealized gains. That’s not income.

We have a wonderfully progressive income tax system.

I don't know why you post this stuff. You must know at this point there's plenty of people here who are going to point out how wrong it is, so it's literally just wasting your - and their - time.

Case in point, you've conflated contribution towards total revenue with percentage of income.

But it's entirely possible for the bottom 50% to pay 3% of the total and pay a higher percentage of their total income than the richest 400 families. You don't seem to realise that an effective tax rate 24.2% of nowhere near enough can easily only add up to a small percentage of the total. Or that a lower percentage of a ludicrous amount can be vastly more than that.

And while you can certainly dispute how an effective tax rate is calculated, you'd have to do a lot better than, essentially, "nuh uh", to be convincing.

As for the US (or UK for that matter) tax system being "wonderfully progressive," no, it isn't, as even a basic comparison with previous decades can show. At best, I'd say it's "vaguely progressive." And consistently trending in the wrong direction.

 

[UriUT]

Yeah, that’s simply garbage.

Given that the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3% of income taxes.

“The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.”

Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2025 Update

New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

taxfoundation.org

The study you posted distorts by using unrealized gains. That’s not income.

We have a wonderfully progressive income tax system.

The analysis differs from many other published estimates of tax burdens by encompassing the totality of taxes Americans pay: not just federal income taxes but also corporate taxes, as well as taxes paid at the state and local levels. It also includes the burden of about $250 billion of what Saez and Zucman call “indirect taxes,” such as licenses for motor vehicles and businesses.

I don't know how you conclude "unrealized gains". I'm no tax experts by any means. When someone says unrealized gains, and this past election cycle debated possibly taxing unrealized gains, I'll conclude that we don't have it in the tax codes. As you can see from the quote, this is a new approach that includes local and state taxes. Sales taxes are notoriously regressive. While federal taxes relieves more burden for the ultra wealthy, local and state taxes..ie sales taxes won't affect these people as there are a limit on consumption. Instead, the lower 50% would have that burden weigh more heavily.


This is more of a valid critique.

The credit, which is intended to encourage low-income families to work, “is part of the tax code,” Furman said. A person who paid $1,000 in federal income taxes and then received a $1,500 credit would have a total federal tax burden of -$500, but Furman said that under Saez and Zucman’s analysis, that person would instead show a burden of $0. That result would make total tax burdens at the lower end of the income spectrum appear higher than they are.

This is their response:

Zucman countered that his and Saez’s analysis considers the EITC and other credits like it as transfers of income, akin to food stamps or jobless benefits, rather than tax provisions.

What's clear:

There is general agreement among economists, however, that the tax burden of the rich has fallen considerably in recent decades.

 

[TampaJoe]

I knew you would defend him. You’re a Maga supporter who just doesn’t want to admit it.

What Trump did was illegal. Full stop. He didn’t do what everybody else does, he did it 100x worse. And the victims were the taxpayers of NY state and city who were swindled out of tax revenue, and the insurance companies who were swindled out of premiums and the banks who were swindled out of interest points. Because they were willing victims doesn’t matter. This is why if a man beats up his wife, he gets prosecuted even if she doesn’t want to press charges, as long as there is sufficient evidence.

The fact that you want to allow billionaires to keep breaking the law with impunity says a lot about your world view. Did you even consider that? This is how the uber wealthy get away with crimes. Because people like you will excuse them.

Oh, and Andrew Cuomo is just another crook. So spare me his opinion.

I’m no maga supporter. I don’t support using the courts for purely political purposes. I don’t support such tactics from either party. There is simply no excuse for it.

As for the folks who were defrauded. Tell me how that worked. Tax assessors other own appraisals. So do lendors. So do insurance companies. When was the last time you borrowed money on property without an appraisal? That’s not how it works. But don’t let the facts get in the way. I’ve been involved in such deals over the years and have yet to see a real estate deal that relied totally on the valuations of the owner. As a lender, you would not be in business very long if you did. For one thing such a practice wouldn’t pass the first bank exam.

You had a DA and an AG that ran on promises to get Trump. And they did. 3 misdemeanor charges that miraculously morphed into 34 felony counts and these real estate fraud allegations that had no victims. Not collusion or sedition. And you expect people to believe that it wasn’t politically motivated? Now these same folks are running around with their hair on fire fearful that Trump will seek retribution on his political opponents. How ironic? You can’t make this crap up.

So spare me the maga crap. Just follow the law and stop using the courts to fight political fights. That is not the purpose for which they were intended.

 

[TampaJoe]

“Perhaps he is taking advantage of legitimate tax preference items passed by the legislature and signed into law by Potuses over the years. Tax preferences designed and often passed in a bipartisan fashion to encourage the purchase of equipment, business growth and investment, construction etc.” - direct from YOUR post. Please note the word “investment”.

So noted. I already responded to your corporate investment argument.

 

[RobF]

As for the folks who were defrauded. Tell me how that worked.

We covered this in the thread about it - e.g. here - but it's naturally all covered in the ruling, here: https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/fb...cumentId=CJKA2EOIiTRatUAYz6FyeA==&system=prod

 

[superchuck500]

Yeah, that’s simply garbage.

Given that the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3% of income taxes.

“The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.”

Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2025 Update

New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

taxfoundation.org

The study you posted distorts by using unrealized gains. That’s not income.

We have a wonderfully progressive income tax system.

No, it doesn't include unrealized gains, it's purely based on AGI / tax paid. That's what "effective rate" means.

This has always been an issue - there are different tax treatments for capital gains versus income and there remain significant deductions and credits to be taken if the filer is able to. But basically anytime a tax filer is able to pay a lower rate on specific AGI components than they would have paid on it had it been ordinary income, they lower their effective rate.

If all you have is wage income, your effective rate is typically going to be the same as your scheduled rate. But if you are able to take advantage of deductions, allowances, and other rules for favorable tax treatment, you can lower your effective rate substantially.

 

[Sendai]

No, it doesn't include unrealized gains, it's purely based on AGI / tax paid. That's what "effective rate" means.

This has always been an issue - there are different tax treatments for capital gains versus income and there remain significant deductions and credits to be taken if the filer is able to. But basically anytime a tax filer is able to pay a lower rate on specific AGI components than they would have paid on it had it been ordinary income, they lower their effective rate.

If all you have is wage income, your effective rate is typically going to be the same as your scheduled rate. But if you are able to take advantage of deductions, allowances, and other rules for favorable tax treatment, you can lower your effective rate substantially.

This says otherwise

“While a single mother of 2 making $50,000 a year will owe $19 in income taxes and get a check for $611 based on a $630 earned income credit.”

 

[superchuck500]

This says otherwise

“While a single mother of 2 making $50,000 a year will owe $19 in income taxes and get a check for $611 based on a $630 earned income credit.”

Is this how you always communicate? Where does that come from? Explain what you think it means in the context of the discussion. good lord

 

[bird]

I’m no maga supporter. I don’t support using the courts for purely political purposes. I don’t support such tactics from either party. There is simply no excuse for it.

As for the folks who were defrauded. Tell me how that worked. Tax assessors other own appraisals. So do lendors. So do insurance companies. When was the last time you borrowed money on property without an appraisal? That’s not how it works. But don’t let the facts get in the way. I’ve been involved in such deals over the years and have yet to see a real estate deal that relied totally on the valuations of the owner. As a lender, you would not be in business very long if you did. For one thing such a practice wouldn’t pass the first bank exam.

You had a DA and an AG that ran on promises to get Trump. And they did. 3 misdemeanor charges that miraculously morphed into 34 felony counts and these real estate fraud allegations that had no victims. Not collusion or sedition. And you expect people to believe that it wasn’t politically motivated? Now these same folks are running around with their hair on fire fearful that Trump will seek retribution on his political opponents. How ironic? You can’t make this crap up.

So spare me the maga crap. Just follow the law and stop using the courts to fight political fights. That is not the purpose for which they were intended.

Tell your tale about the courts somewhere else. The packed SCOTUS employs political actions on a constant basis.

Tell us exactly which human activities the constitution deems acceptable and which ones it deems unacceptable. SCOTUS decisions are precisely the personal opinions of the justices, nothing more, nothing less.

Btw, you do understand that the courts and law are all political, right?

 

[bird]

Yeah, that’s simply garbage.

Given that the bottom 50% of wage earners pay 3% of income taxes.

“The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.”

Summary of the Latest Federal Income Tax Data, 2025 Update

New IRS data shows the US federal income tax system continues to be progressive as high-income taxpayers pay the highest average income tax rates. Average tax rates for all income groups remain lower after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).

taxfoundation.org

The study you posted distorts by using unrealized gains. That’s not income.

We have a wonderfully progressive income tax system.

Income taxes are taxes but not all taxes are income taxes.

Furthermore, income taxes are deducted from the paychecks of low income people thus impacting their daily lives. That they get a refund is basically irrelevant. That refund does not allow them to catch up to the impact on their daily costs.

Then there is FICA. And sales tax. And taxes on gasoline.

 

[TampaJoe]

Getting gaslit isn't a surprising endpoint after challenging a person to apply some reasoning.


Ha! The point was sky written for you. In long prose. In short form. Through examples. Through inductive reasoning. It can be lasered into your eyes, and it wouldn't matter. And then you continue on with the same flawed, "magical" thinking.

Comically enough that you say this. It's emblematic to what you stated here after I questioned, "Solve this math question for me....". It gets completely misinterpreted and then ignored. There is simply zero effort towards understanding. Zero curiosity. Someone who wants to be reasoned after being told that they have missed the point would be curious. "Why did he ask that question?" "What does math have to do with anything?" Further, "Why didn't he give me a specific math question?" "Is it simply, '2+2'?". "Why was he intentionally vague?" "How can I solve a math question if he didn't give me one?" "Did it have anything to do with all his and other's points made prior?"

Zero effort. Zero curiosity. Zero applied critical thoughts.

Tell your tale about the courts somewhere else. The packed SCOTUS employs political actions on a constant basis.

Tell us exactly which human activities the constitution deems acceptable and which ones it deems unacceptable. SCOTUS decisions are precisely the personal opinions of the justices, nothing more, nothing less.

Btw, you do understand that the courts and law are all political, right?

I never claimed that SCOTUS decisions are anything more than the opinions of the Justices. That’s why they call them opinions. The point I am making is that the courts and the judicial/legal resources of the US Government should not be used as political weapons. Not by ANY party. Then objective is that Justice should be blind. To use government resources as a political weapon against one’s political rivals is an abuse of power. It’s unacceptable. Political disputes should be handled at the ballot box.