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Comment by megablast | Hacker News Reader

So you want to pay higher taxes? You are in the minority.

You seem to be assuming that in order to have reliable infrastructure, we have to pay for all the things we pay for now, plus reliable infrastructure.

I'd like to pay lower taxes, and have them spent on different things. Such as reliable infrastructure instead of 20-year wars. (And a pony.)

You making it sound like having higher tax rates — and a marginally worse quality of life — to prevent people from dying is an unambiguously bad choice?

I would be happy to pay more taxes. I’d pay more on taxes than I currently do in insurance premiums to get everyone healthcare (though it seems likely I’d end up paying less).

Actually, I want the people that make more than me to pay their fair share. That alone would pay for pretty much everything the U.S. needs.

I am ok with it as long as the people with more money than me cannot simply create/find loopholes that allows them not to pay. The main argument against higher taxes to me is it becomes very easy for "them" to allocate a small portion of their vast wealths into creating more loopholes.

I can't believe we don't have any successful politicians who campaign on the promise of higher taxes and an end to all credits, deductions, and exclusions for everyone. It feels like it isn't sellable at all.

And by “fair share” you mean even proportionally more of their income than yours. Because aside from some people living purely off of cap gains, the doctors/lawyers/engineers/small business owners already pay more absolute values and more percentage values than the lower and middle class.

I think the costs of taking it seriously before the disaster and after the disaster would be similar. The difference is that before the disaster, the budget seems discretionary and afterwords feels mandatory. Also, after the disaster, many people are dead.

I'd say we could trade away the feeling that we could spend the money elsewhere for the lives of all the people who were killed.

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