@poundquerydotinfo Great! Explain to me exactly how we are gonna tax billionaires, with details, lay out a step by step plan of how this will actually happen. Because it ain't happening AT ALL right now, and the current regime seems EXTREMELY unlikely to do anything about that. Hell even with a winning ballot of Bernie, AOC, and every pet "progressive" Dem you can think of.. I highly doubt they could make the billionaire taxes happen in practice. I'd love to be proved wrong. Wake me up when I am. Otherwise, "actually taxing people/billionaires]" is just a fantasy that does severe harm by making people believe it is possible (it is not).

@cwicseolfor data doesn't support that, though. You don't hate means testing. You hate the means testing industrial complex. and I agree, KILL THE MEANS TESTING INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE.. and build something far simpler not perversely motivated to become as complex and arduous as possible to extract max dollars from governments

@codinghorror Having read your top profile post on favoring GMI over UBI I begin to see what you’re about but disagree unless it’s directly integrated into the tax system as a negative bottom income tax bracket, and everyone, and I mean everyone, is integrated into said tax system - which is an exceedingly hard sell - though I can see it being very useful as a transitional step toward universal income (which can be taxed right away again for those of us with more than we need.)

Meanwhile, means testing as currently executed remains punitively intrusive, expensive to administer, and typically enshrines rather than breaking down divisions between haves and have nots - just look at the intense pressure on many people experiencing disability to *divorce* simply to become eligible to access care which they aren’t considered poor enough to receive otherwise, but are still too poor to afford. The cliffs and mismatches are deliberate; politicians brag about them. It would be much simpler to run the risk of giving Jeff Bezos $15k once a year which he doesn’t need (which he’s earning every what, two seconds anyway?) and *ensure* we’ve covered every person who can’t keep the lights on or a roof overhead.