It's easy to be robust when 20% of the GDP is simply pumped out of the ground and is used to fund the government.
Also, you're ignoring Sweden and Denmark. Many countries have discovered oil - the USA is a massive producer, far more than Norway - they just didn't create a fund with it, preferring to give the profits to the few.
Used to fund the government pension system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Nor...
It doesn't detract at all from the point that it's oil revenue supporting it, not economic activity. It's currently worth $195,000 per Norwegian.
> the USA is a massive producer, far more than Norway
Not remotely 20% of the GDP.
> preferring to give the profits to the few.
The US government, in contrast, is mostly funded by taxes on wealthy people:
"the top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent."
https://taxfoundation.org/summary-of-the-latest-federal-inco...
Norway is quite a bit wealthier than Sweden, pretty much entirely due to the oil:
https://www.indexmundi.com/factbook/compare/norway.sweden/ec...
However this is incorrect, as the spending rules were changed in 2001. The correct statement is that the government can withdraw 3% of the real return[1] of the fund. The 3% figure was adjusted down from an initial 4%.
[1]: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/tema/okonomi-og-budsjett/norsk...
This isn't painting the full tax picture though. It only looks at a subset of federal taxes and ignores non-federal taxes (maybe you meant 'federal' when you said 'U.S.'?). For example, payroll taxes fall disproportionately (on a percentage of income basis) on the non-wealthy and make up 36% of federal taxes but aren't included in income tax stats.[1]
[1]https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/policy-basics-wher...
That's because it's a pension fund, not a general government funding tax. Even so, if you look at FICA payouts to the wealthy, you'll find that the wealthy pay disproportionately far more into the program per benefit received than the poor.
I don't think that's the most accurate way to view social security given the benefit structure. E.g., it's not necessarily typical for a pension to cover disability insurance, healthcare, etc. Regardless, it's a digression from the original comment point which is about the proportion of taxes.
Taxes need to be viewed in the context of the entire tax structure, not just a subset of taxes known as the federal income tax. While I don't disagree that the wealthy pay disproportionately more, it's not nearly as much as the GP post suggests when you look at the entire tax structure. As an example, in that context, the top 1% account for 20.9% of the total income and pay 24.3% of the total taxes [1]. The point being, we need to be careful not to cherry-pick from subsets of the overall tax structure. Only reporting federal income tax statistics can be accurate and misleading at the same time.
Obamacare is also set up so that the wealthier pay a disproportionate amount in premiums relative to the benefits they receive. Should that be counted?
Any way you want to slice it, the wealthy are supporting this country in taxes, and in Norway it's oil revenue.
Yes. The Supreme Court ruled the mandate is a tax.
”The mandate is an amendment to the Internal Revenue Code, and it is calculated based on a percentage of adjusted gross income or a fixed amount, whichever is larger. Starting in 2014, it will be collected on your form 1040 just like your other taxes.” [1]
The issue wasn’t with your claim that wealthy pay a disproportionate share. That’s literally what the intent of a progressive tax regime is supposed to ensure. The issue was with the biased representation of a subset of taxes to make your point.
Would you claim that long distance commuters pay unfair levels of taxes because they are disproportionately represented in gasoline taxes? Or does it make more sense to frame it in the overall context of total tax revenue?
I’m not quite sure if your stance is that the tax code is wrong morally or pragmatically but it’s doing exactly what a progressive tax schedule is supposed to do.
> Also, you're ignoring Sweden and Denmark. Many countries have discovered oil - the USA is a massive producer, far more than Norway - they just didn't create a fund with it, preferring to give the profits to the few.