Where do you live? I'd have to rub elbows with meth addicts and give weekly hand jobs to the property owners to find a town home costing $800 in San Jose, CA.
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Vox: Bernie Sanders's tax hikes are bigger than Donald Trump's tax cuts
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Where do you live? I'd have to rub elbows with meth addicts and give weekly hand jobs to the property owners to find a town home costing $800 in San Jose, CA.
Marty Chinn
Member
Cost of living varies dramatically in different areas. Houses here cost 7 to 10 times more than other cities and states for much older, smaller and worse house too. A down payment can buy two houses out right in another state. That's how 100K isn't living rich for a family of four, especially if both work and you're paying for daycare for two kids too.
Even doing that, I don't think you could find that in San Jose.
LucidMomentum
Member
Yeah even in Kern County if I could find a house for $800 a month that isn't run down and you bet your ass I'd be living there.
Lumination
'enry 'ollins
That comment was more tongue-in-cheek than anything.
I actually sympathize with Euphoria. It's not easy when you're locked into a mortgage and have settled into a life. It's one thing to put less into your bank, but it's a whole different ball game when you have to uproot your life.
Is it easier than than being poor? Of course. Is it selfish to not want to do so? I don't think so either.
My hands are magical
Pagusas
Elden Member
Quality of life, as you increase in income what your QOL increases, that cost money, the taxes proposed here would drop many people down a bracket in terms of QOL. Take 9-10k out of my wife and I's income and that would be an insane hit to our yearly finances.
Not just QOL though, but most places you live that support you making tripple digits or more tend to cost more to live around. We moved from northern Illinois to Dallas, the cost of living went up dramatically but so did our income.
Euphoria14
Member
I have my own problems whether people choose to believe it or not.
$1,450/month is $17,400/year. Then add $150/month electric bill and $300 oil drops.
My wife had an issue with a lump in her breast last year, so she missed 1-1/2 months of work due to surgery. She gets no pay when she doesn't work, so $7,680 lost. Luckily my insurance covered the entire procedure while costing me $4400/year less than Bernie's plan.
Any other days she misses due to feeling ill, money lost (fuck her though, she should work so everyone else can get free medical).
She works with mentally disabled children by the way. Has been even when she worked for $9/hour. Her passion is helping the children who need it most. The children who society tend to cast aside.
On top of take out my taxes and other deductions, which bring my check from $806 to $470/week. I have a 401k loan to pay back due to borrowing so could buy my small .17 acre lot home with 1 bathroom. I pay social security, Medicaid, etc... I pay so that if God forbid anything happens to me, my family is well taken care of.
The on top of that I can barely save $5000/year to help cover the $3000+/year I owe due to my wife not paying taxes on her check.
Yes, with the money we make weekly we just get by and the money we save due to her not paying taxes basically gets paid back anyways, so at the end we get around $2,000/year.
But yeah, raise my taxes $4400.
Fuck me though, I should take the $2400/year hit and figure shit out, cutting down my current standard of living and getting rid of things I have all so that someone else gets things easier while contributing nothing at all back to me.
As someone else said, it's really easy to spend everyone else's money.
The other part of this that I don't understand is all of this money is meant to "pay" for things that people already spend money for on an individual basis. If that all costs $X and the plan also costs $X, then shouldn't it all even out? If there are people paying more into the system than they're receiving, then there should be an equal amount of dollars being paid out in excess, so to speak. If this is what healthcare costs, then it shouldn't be so much more than what everyone is paying in healthcare currently.
UnemployedVillain
Member
This is why people keep bringing up the cost of living differing in different areas. There is nowhere in Boston/Cambridge or NYC that you can find an apartment for only $800/mo, even if you're living with 3+ roommates
WonkyPanda
Member
Oh my god, $800 a month in LA? I am not even joking when 700 sq ft goes for ~2500 a month in LA.
ArkhamFantasy
Member
Universal Healthcare is cheaper than our rigged system which exists to maximize medical profits.
People in the UK pay half as much for healthcare as americans. Our pharmaceutical companies spend more money on advertising than they do on R&D, with UHC that wouldnt be an issue, the government would also negotiate with the medical companies for lower prices. There's a reason why every single civilized country on the planet has some form of universal healthcare. (the sole exception being America
And when you see a politician against UHC, check who's funding their campaigns and you will likely find pharmaceutical companies on the list.
Elfforkusu
Member
Not being locked into a job for benefits reasons would be a huge fucking deal.
Marty Chinn
Member
It's amazing how small people's bubble can be and have no concept of how cost of living is dramatically different. A lot of people just have no understanding or clue what is like to live there.
Resident_UA
Member
I'm not here to defend Bernie, but people thinking that federal taxes will ever impact their lives are so naive... Everything is a balance. If federal taxes are 0% the local taxes will hit you. Nothing is free. You can argue about the best approach, but election period is the worst time for this type of argument. What is promised now will not be what actually happens. And there's absolutely no difference between two parties when it comes to taxes. Neither party is prepared to significantly cut spending.
I think he's from Baton Rouge, Louisiana... where I can get a 3-4 BR condo for what it'd cost me to get a Studio/1BR apartment in an area of San Jose where I won't get stabbed at night.
Euphoria14
Member
That's the problem. People look at where they live and think those prices apply around the entire country, same as how Bernie calls for a minimum wage hike to $15/hour across the country, meanwhile some areas do not need to raise to $15/hour.
Resident_UA
Member
There are very few areas in the country where you could live on $600 a week before taxes and before buying health insurance... In fact this higher minimum wage would probably help those areas because everyone would try to move there.
Do you think wages by 2020 shouldn't be $15/hour and if so why?
Would you like me to answer that question because, as someone who just dislocated their knee cap and tore a ligament, I'm pretty well versed in what that more or less looks like.
-I got the privilege of being redirected from my in-network medical provider to another location with an ER ($250 copay), despite the fact that it was 15 minutes away, I was in quite a bit of pain, and they could've treated me there. The ER didn't really resolve the issue beyond the pain since the X-rays were clean, so then I had see an orthopedist.
-But you just can't see an orthopedist, you have to get referred and I was required to see a primary care physician; he didn't have an opening until April.
-After 90 minutes of phone calls, I was able to see a doctor 30 minutes north in a few days, but I had to drive myself with a busted leg and take time off work.
-The primary care physician didn't tell me anything that I didn't know at the time other than that I likely didn't dislocate my actual knee or tear my ACL. It got me a referral to an orthopedist who didn't have availability until the end of April.
-After some back and forth, I was able to see a specialist ($70 copay) who gave me a knee brace and referred me to get a MRI.
-A few days later, another appointment and another $250 copay. Dislocated knee cap, small tear in knee ligament. Referred to physical therapist for a few weeks.
That part hasn't happened yet, so I don't know what copays are involved there as of yet, but so far, I'm $600-700ish in the hole for a fairly straightforward issue, and that's only because a) I have decent insurance, b) a job that I can continue to work at during the whole process, c) a flexible and understanding employer, and d) I take good care of my health otherwise. If you have none of things, good luck.
Also, sans universal health care or a Netherlands like levels of regulation, health coverage will still be patchy, employer dependent, and super costly. If you think those tax hikes are high, wait until you see the average rates of health care inflation. At best, the rate of inflation stalls or goes down a smidgen temporarily, but the overall trend is up, up, up.
Under Sanders' plan, I'm looking at taking a 10+% hit or so, and it doesn't even bother me at all. If you want something, you pay for it, and anything that moves us away from this godforsaken health insurance scheme is an improvement.
This I can agree with, Bernie night be trying to do too much all at once.
Once again you are singling Bernie Sanders out when that is how every federal policy works. It would be a bureaucratic nightmare to scale everything to cost of living for each particular area. Do you blame Obama for your tax rates being higher when compared to cost of living to someone in Lincoln, Nebraska? What about George W. for your future social security check not going as far? It is very strange that you feel that this is a Bernie Sanders issues. You are an outlier and need to come to terms with it.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Winter Park Florida.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
Now imagine getting 15-30k per year and that's how most Americans are living without healthcare.
I'm kind of hesitant to believe that a salary that was originally agreed at $X + $Y for Health Insurance would suddenly become $X + Fuck You. I would believe that companies would try to keep some of that $Y for themselves, but I think employees would be able to get most of it. I mean employers are trying to pay the lowest amount possible at all times, not just randomly make wages lower because a law was passed.
Either way like, if you want to have universal health care then you have to pay for all of that healthcare somewhere. There's got to be a way that doesn't just put more of the costs that businesses used to pay onto the working class. I'm not sure that this plan actually does that, but I feel like Bernie Sanders is probably the candidate that is most dedicated to making sure that these costs are paid for mostly by corporations and "The 1%". Maybe he needs to check his numbers but it's not like he's trying to swindle the middle class to help corporations.
Euphoria14
Member
All depends on how things look come 2020.
Right now a place like Buffalo doesn't need $15/hour when a home is $84,000 on average.
By that logic Long Island should have $30/hour, if not more. Although we know damn well that would kill the jobs market.
Median asking price for a home in Long Island? $419,000 as of August 2014.
benjipwns
Banned
It's an election campaign, every candidate promises the world.
Events can change the course of Presidencies overnight. 9/11 being arguably the best example of our lifetimes.
Haven't read this thread since the afternoon so I'm sure I've missed some discussion on this subject. Anyway, I agree with the sentiment that free college was a bit of an overreach by Bernie. We should instead be focusing on lowering tuition costs and fixing the student loan problem (capping interest? forgiven after 20 years?). Free college is a pipe dream that we can maybe address a couple of decades down the road when other issues are fixed.
UHC is a must though. Not sure if Bernie's plan is the best way but we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare and it's mostly complete garbage. I've been reading about Germany's plan as of late which is interesting but obviously wouldn't translate 1:1. I think there's a couple of interesting ideas there though, namely capping costs on procedures and allowing health providers to sell across state lines with regulations of course.
UHC is a must though. Not sure if Bernie's plan is the best way but we spend 17% of our GDP on healthcare and it's mostly complete garbage. I've been reading about Germany's plan as of late which is interesting but obviously wouldn't translate 1:1. I think there's a couple of interesting ideas there though, namely capping costs on procedures and allowing health providers to sell across state lines with regulations of course.
Polioliolio
Member
Taxes pay for infrastructure, education, and health.. I hate to see people whine about having to pay taxes.
I don't complain about paying taxes. But if you want to raise them, I'm certainly going to complain.
Atomic Playboy
Member
Society would absolutely benefit. At my expense. My wife and I earn a middle class income between us, around $80k pre-tax. We have one child, with one more expected in the next 18 months, give or take. We both have insurance through work; our child is an additional $50 or so per month on my plan. We both have bachelors degrees and student loan debt from that. So, Bernie's proposal gives us free healthcare. Great. We save $50 per month in healthcare, and our employers presumably don't pay us what they were putting towards insurance. Free college means nothing as we have degrees. That's $600 in the black. An extra $5,000+ per year in taxes would destroy us financially. We can't afford childcare as it is. Is Bernie proposing free childcare? Is he going to cancel our student loans? We can't get a home loan. We couldn't afford to stay in our apartment. We would have to move 20+ miles away from our jobs, so our cost of commuting rises (not to mention it moves us away from the free childcare we get from my family). I mean... there's no way. There's literally no way. We could never, ever, ever afford this.
I'm in favor of socialist policies, but they have to work in conjunction with other economic policies. Enacting this after people already have mortgages, student loans and childcare costs would devastate everyone in my generation who isn't wealthy. It's wonderful in theory. But it is useless for people who have already started their professional lives. The breakdown simply can't be so punitive on the poor and middle class or it's a complete non-starter for 95% of the country.
The analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice found that 95 percent of American households will see their take-home pay go up, not down, under Sanders’ Medicare- for-all plan which is paid for by his progressive tax plan.
Citizens for Tax Justice also found that middle class families would see their take-home pay go up by more than $3,200 a year under Sanders’ plan.
I'm going to need to see the receipts for that one. How will take home pay go up? Please tell me it's not the "Well your employer will give you a bigger salary since they don't have to pay for health care" line.
JesseEwiak
Member
Every other civilized country somehow does and they even have middle class people with mortgages and childcare like you do (as for that, Bernie does support expanded pre-K and easier access to childcare, so there's that).
But, in every Western European country there were middle class people that were comfortable, if not living in luxury when programs were enacted. And sure, some of their lives were worse off in the short run led to a better society for their children and grandchildren. There are millions of descendants of shopkeepers and other middle class people in Europe who probably talked their kids ears off about the doom of their society due to taxes increasing, but those descendants wouldn't dare get rid of the programs that form the bedrock of their societies today.
Now, I do think Bernie's tax plan is kind of stupid. But, his goals are we should strive for, even if it means some people in the middle have some hiccups in their lives as a result.
Yeah, I'll let the single Mom's working at Target know how hard it is to make 100k a year.
TyphoonStruggle
Member
No. It looks good on paper.
Add in the free services that come with increased tax amounts. If you only look at half the facts, then it looks terrible.
Marty Chinn
Member
That's not how it works though. There is no $X + $Y for Health Insurance. There's $X + Health Insurance. When people are applying for a job they negotiate for their salary at whatever $X is, and then see if the benefits fit their check list. There's no dollar amount associated for the benefit and realistically, the cost of that benefit is constantly changing for the company while the salary is fixed until a raise is given. So the dollar amount value of that benefit is really never known to the employee and they really don't think of it to have value other than here's a list of things I get too.
So when it comes time to the government taking over healthcare, to the employee, they're going to see that they get healthcare still regardless of who covers it. The companies know this and they'll simply pocket the savings themselves because to the employee, it's not a dollar amount that's part of their pay even though it technically is. To the employee, they've lost nothing when in reality they've been devalued. Knowing that this is the mind set, companies won't give it back to you because they can get away with it. At best, they may give you a small fraction added, and you'll just think yay you got a raise when in reality they took something of value from you.
So the reality is you get screwed once from the companies who pocket the savings, and then on top of that you get screwed again cuz now your taxes went up to pay for healthcare and now you've got a double whammy against you for something that you used to get. You've lost twice as much in value and the companies will get away with it and the employee will blame it on the government. They get off scott free because people don't really realize what just happened.
So anyone thinking the companies will give it all back or even most of it back are super naive. There's no way that's going to happen. At best you'll get a small fraction of it, and at worst you'll get nothing and pay more taxes on top of it.
B
bomb
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah and most everyone in Western Europe hates it. It breeds lack of desire.
I like how everyone brings up Western Europe as some holy ground. They have little industry due to this.
benjipwns
Banned
But it's not "half the facts" it's "half the promises" and especially after the last set of health insurance changes people are probably not marking them down as guaranteed. (Or even close, since Obama campaigned against a mandate as stupid, and what we got, was a mandate. And no public option.)
WonkyPanda
Member
Get ready to, effectively, be called an entitled piece of poop.
Boombloxer
Member
Zero chance ill ever support this.
Real easy to spend someone else's money.
Edit: Honestly, the actual amount of work done for those jobs is greater and or just as hard. Why shouldn't someone actually be rewarded for working hard? The market pays what it pays.
You can make 150k and get jack-shit in SF or Long Island, etc.
Real easy to spend someone else's money.
Edit: Honestly, the actual amount of work done for those jobs is greater and or just as hard. Why shouldn't someone actually be rewarded for working hard? The market pays what it pays.
You can make 150k and get jack-shit in SF or Long Island, etc.
I think if you're in an industry with competitive hiring practices, some % of those health care savings may go back into your paycheck.
But everyone else is going to get fucked, and whatever money those employers save on health care is going to be used to offset the increased payroll taxes.
thehypocrite
Member
Sounds great, where do I have to sign?
Well, you certainly live up to your handle. Does anyone else have any other questions for Western Europe? This one guy can answer them!
B
bomb
Unconfirmed Member
If you make $21,000 a year. You are in the top 3.2% of richest people in the world. Isn't that good enough? if you want more than that, doesn't that make you greedy?
I am. I've also worked extremely hard for it and continue to work extremely hard for it. And if I want to be charitable and give more of my income, that should be my decision not my governments.
Most employers deduct health insurance premiums from their employee's paycheck. they are presumably talking about that cost being dramatically reduced/eliminated, so people keep more of their pay. They wouldn't need a raise, just a lack of healthcare premium.
I have no idea if Sanders' plan shakes out, but I think that's what he was talking about, not raises.
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