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Comment by heresjohnny | Hacker News Reader

As someone from Europe, I had heard before about bankrupting ambulance rides, slavery in prisons, and food deserts. I did not expect to add “lunch money humiliation ritual” to that list. I’ll think of this next time I complain about my 50% income tax.

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I still have vivid memories of getting the 'reduced cost' meal ticket for school lunch. They made all of us with the reduced tickets stand in line and wait for the other kids to get their food first, where all the other kids had to walk past and stare at us, and once everyone else was served, they'd put the food away that was given to the other kids, then hand out shitty plastic-wrapped sandwiches that were half the size of the barely-adequate meals the 'full' sized lunches got.

It was all on purpose, too, to make us ashamed for not paying the full amount.

The adults that chose this path were fucking evil ghouls, the lot of them. Of all the things I want my tax money to go to, ensuring that no one (and especially growing children) need to feel hunger pangs while trying to learn is close to top of the list.

That experience is ridiculous, I'm sorry you had to go through that. My cousin is a teacher and is trying to support one of her students who is very food insecure. She's currently putting a box of food into the kids backpack every day, so the kid doesn't feel different/shame bringing a bag of food home. The one consistent meal the kid gets per day is the school lunch.

It wasn't that child's choice to be born. Some of the biggest lifetime ROI's out there are ensuring a childhood isn't filled with trauma, involves enough nutrition to help their bodies and brains develop, etc.

I have no time for people who make an argument about "the government shouldn't be providing food because it creates a dependency or expectation they'll want for life". Their lifetime earnings and contributions to society will be vastly larger if they aren't hungry during the school day.

It's tough to focus and learn when you're only eating a few hundred calories per day.

50% sounds manageable still. Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot. Assuming no costs to deliver, I need to bill 10K€ to net ~3,5K€. It makes exports uncompetitive with other lower taxed countries. Despite this, seeing a general practitioner can take months for issues that aren't-killing-you-right-now.

>Currently paying ~65% of whatever I bill, in taxes and that hurts quite a lot.

A decent portion of that goes towards your retirement though right? It's not like it's just vague government services you don't benefit from.

To make a useful contribution to the discussion, at least say what country this applies to.

You also seem to have added business taxes onto the income taxes.

Ahh but you can see a general practicioner! That puts you head an shoulders over the average urban californian saddled with being triaged into the stripmall based urgent care system for lack of regional hospitals and gps. Corporate healthcare solutions are no greener grass than your public option… wait until you find out what is considered a cosmetic procedure (like having teeth).

It really doesn't matter how much tax you pay. If everyone pays 65% it's the same as if everyone paid 0. Income tax doesn't come from the pocket of a worker. Employer needs to pay you enough so that you can live your life the way you want to. If he doesn't, you just don't work for him and he has no business. They will pay you as little as they can, but the amount they optimize is the amount after tax.

Economic though is focused around employers and employees but it's the customer that covers the bill down the line. As long as the consumer is healthy you can set tax as high or as low as you want to.

Switzerland spends like 30% of GDP and pretty low debt. So I don't think you need 50% of GDP to fix any of the issues mentioned.

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