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Comment by sien | Hacker News Reader

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Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product has been roughly stable for more than half a century.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFRGDA188S

The top quintile of income earners in the US pay 34% of all taxes. The next quintile 26% .

https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/who-pays-taxe...

US Federal spending was 7 Trn in 2025. This is surely enough to fund things.

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...

That is more than the total GDP of any country except China and the US itself.

I think that’s a fair point, and it highlights part of the tension here. Total receipts as a share of GDP may be relatively stable, but the structure of taxation and where the burden falls has changed over time.

My point wasn’t that government lacked revenue in aggregate, but that many of the periods people point to as examples of large national projects coincided with higher marginal tax rates on top earners.

The interesting question isn’t just how much is collected, but how the burden is distributed and what tradeoffs people are willing to accept going forward.

> The top quintile of income earners in the US pay 34% of all taxes. The next quintile 26% .

And what percentages of all income & wealth do those quintiles have...?

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