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Comment by wing-_-nuts | Hacker News Reader

Why not? We tax property every year on it's assessed value. I think it's pretty clear that the wealthy will need to pay more taxes throughout the world to deal with an aging population.

I'm a little tired of billionaires 'buy, borrow, dying' to get around the paltry taxes they're currently subject to. We need a harder tax to dodge.

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Why would taxing the wealthy be relevant to an aging population? Do you think that we tax stuff? We just tax money to buy stuff. If a nation produces less stuff, then spending more will just cause prices to go up, but will not result in the production of more stuff to go around.

Because our current social safety nets all work by assuming the next generation pays for the care of the current elderly. Those elderly do need 'stuff' they need doctors and nurses and nursing homes. Thus taxes will have to go up, and if it has to, it may as well be progressive.

We already have giant amounts of tax everywhere, all the time. What makes you think we have no money for this?

No, actually, we have explicit taxes for SS and Medicare, and we've known they were not bringing in enough revenue to fund those programs since the 80s.

The trust funds are almost dry, so we're either going to have to raise those taxes to fund those programs, or cut a critical safety net to the American public. I know where my vote is going.

Or cut something else. The assumption that all government money is spent perfectly on essentials is a huge issue that afflicts tens of millions of voters.

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