Submitted by Existing-Papaya-8643 t3_10odek9 in Pennsylvania
drxdrg08 t1_j6ewg8o wrote
Reply to comment by Existing-Papaya-8643 in Universal Childcare for Pennsylvanians— and everyone in the US by Existing-Papaya-8643
Not even roughly? Is it a $1B program or 3 orders of magnitude larger a $1T program?
I have some rough numbers in my head. There are currently 23 million children between 0 and 5 years old. This does not account for the fact that full day kindergarten is not available everywhere, and even school is not full day, so it would require additional care. Let's multiply 23 by 50% to roughly account for those older children.
How much would full time care cost when funded through a state program? Probably significantly more than private daycare costs now, since there is barely any profit margin in those businesses, and there are complaints that daycare workers are nor paid living wages.
So let's say $18K per child with all overhead. That adds up to $621B annually.
There are roughly 125M households in the USA, and half of them don't pay any federal taxes. That comes out to roughly $10,000 in extra taxes per tax paying household. Every year.
[deleted] t1_j6f4p2k wrote
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drxdrg08 t1_j6f6l1i wrote
And all other non-profits. Tax them on revenue.
95% tax on revenue like it was in the 1950's.
cigarmanpa t1_j6eycti wrote
Great. Now we have another reason to tax churches, corporations and the ultra rich
Existing-Papaya-8643 OP t1_j6exd7q wrote
Well, I’m actually anti-universal childcare now that I’ve read this! You totally changed my mind. Thank you for enlightening me, drxdrg08 :)
drxdrg08 t1_j6f0sr3 wrote
I'm just showing you how expensive this program might be, since you said you don't have even rough figures.
To put it into perspective, $612B is twice the size of Medicare tax collections, and those tax collections are a 12.4% tax on income.
Chemical_Miracle_0 t1_j6ez6mu wrote
If that’s how you respond to legitimate questions about how to fund this proposal I don’t think your going to get very far with this.
Dredly t1_j6f20ia wrote
To be fair, OP can't respond to this because they literally have no idea what they are doing or talking about.
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I asked them what their proposal was, they don't have one. OP (based on post history) is just pissed because this issue suddenly impacts them in the last 2 - 3 months.
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They want it free, everywhere, and high quality... and nfc how to do any of htat
queensekhmet t1_j6f6bsi wrote
They are obviously in the very first stages of trying to organize around an issue that deeply affects many people in this country. Just because she doesn't have a written proposal with a budget doesn't mean they can't work towards making positive change.
Should she not reach out to people to have discourse about this just because she doesn't know all the answers yet? Childcare and it's associated costs is a huge issue and financial burden in this country that needs to be addressed and people absolutely should be trying to find effective solutions to this crisis.
Dredly t1_j6f7sew wrote
They are posting in a state forum with the first rule being "posts must be relevant to PA", recruiting people to go join non-pa subs is supposedly not supposed to be done, on a topic they have no idea what they are talking about, and trying to get people to join a call which isn't related to PA...
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so no, she shouldn't be posting it in this forum without understanding how it in any way applies to PA unless it is specific to PA, according to the rules.
TacoNomad t1_j6i9wqq wrote
OP did say that they have people doing research. You don't have to have all the answers on day one. Not everyone was born knowing everything. Just some of you.
TacoNomad t1_j6i9rwy wrote
"hey, I'm starting up a movement, let's get together and discuss"
"give me all the answers now. Now. NOW!"
"Hey bruh, we literally just started, we don't have all the answers yet. We have some people working on it"
"I pulled a number out my ass that is 10x higher than the real data that exists! Poor people mumble mumble mumble, amirite?"
"lol, k"
And that's your response?
You think OP should just make up phoney numbers like the commenter did, rather than conduct actual research?
Just say you don't care and keep scrolling.
cabinetsnotnow t1_j6f8i8d wrote
Whoa hold up. Why don't half of households pay federal taxes????
drxdrg08 t1_j6faria wrote
Because contrary to popular opinion on Reddit, the federal tax system in this country is highly progressive, and highly re-distributive.
The top 20% of income earners pay 75% of federal taxes. And roughly the bottom 50% of income earners pay no federal taxes at all.
Almost 60% of households paid no federal taxes in the last 2 tax filing cycles when the economy was going through the pandemic.
Muscadine76 t1_j6fgk5g wrote
The estimate this year of nonpayers for federal income tax is closer to 40% and 1/3 of those households are retired people who mostly live on Social Security. Most of the rest are households with low or no income, especially those raising children, or else that have things like short term major business losses or medical bills. It doesn’t particularly make sense for people to be paying income tax in those situations.
Also, most everyone is paying some form of taxes: sales, excise, property, payroll. Those taxes are generally regressive in that they’re a much greater burden for low to moderate income households. Federal taxes offsetting that somewhat is a good thing.
drxdrg08 t1_j6g7djn wrote
> The estimate this year of nonpayers for federal income tax is closer to 40%
The figure is over 50% any year if you factor in redistribution that happens after taxes. If you pay $3000 in federal taxes but receive $30,000 in Medicaid coverage, SNAP and housing assistance, then that doesn't mean you are a "taxpayer" in the context of paying for new government programs.
Muscadine76 t1_j6gbkn8 wrote
The position that people who receive valuable taxpayer services aren’t taxpayers is incredibly disingenuous.
drxdrg08 t1_j6gtlsx wrote
It's not a position. It's a simple mathematical fact.
Muscadine76 t1_j6i5bh9 wrote
Now you’re either doubling down on disingenuousness or just aren’t familiar with what a “fact” actually is. If I pay $100 a month for house insurance for a year and at the end of that year my house burns down and I’m given $250,000 to rebuild, that doesn’t mean I was never an “insurance payer”. If I donate $10 to my local food bank every few months, then lose my job for a year and get $100s of dollars in food support from the pantry, that doesn’t mean I’m not a donor.
drxdrg08 t1_j6ic2g6 wrote
> If I pay $100 a month for house insurance for a year and at the end of that year my house burns down and I’m given $250,000 to rebuild, that doesn’t mean I was never an “insurance payer”.
Your analogy does not make sense. Government means tested benefits are not one time payments.
If your house burns down every year, and you get $250,000 every year while you only pay $1200 every year into the insurance pool... that's an accurate analogy.
If you give $1 to the government in taxes, and the government gives you $10 right back, that doesn't mean you can be counted on as a source of taxes for the next redistribution program that the government comes up with. This isn't rocket science to understand. This is basic math.
But I highly suspect that it's not that you don't understand, you just want to ignore inconvenient facts. That's what Reddit does, come up with a false narrative and ignore basic facts.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j6i7qvs wrote
"Half of all Americans are too poor to pay federal taxes" is not the glowing endorsement of our tax system that you think it is.
bushwhack227 t1_j6ffnlz wrote
>roughly the bottom 50% of income earners pay no federal taxes at all.
No federal income tax. They absolutely do pay Medicare and FICA
drxdrg08 t1_j6fgnsl wrote
They do. And state and local taxes, which are less progressive. But the major difference between federal income taxes and Medicare/FICA taxes is that they are generally paid back when someone retires.
It's more of a mandatory government savings plan than a tax that goes who knows where.
bushwhack227 t1_j6fok9w wrote
>they are generally paid back when someone retires.
That depends how long you live. Wealthier people benefit much more from those puritans because they tend to live longer.
drxdrg08 t1_j6g5zek wrote
That's not true. Social Security is a re-distributive system.
Lower income people get more benefit out of it than they paid into it. In other words, the system skews payments towards the lower end at the expense of the upper end.
[deleted] t1_j6fbg54 wrote
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TacoNomad t1_j6i8vrx wrote
Oh no. People earning minimum wage aren't paying enough taxes!
Maybe we should fix the income problems in our country?
bushwhack227 t1_j6ffji2 wrote
It's not true. Half of households don't make enough to pay anything in federal income taxes, after all the various credits and deductions. However, they still pay Medicare and Social Security payroll taxes
cabinetsnotnow t1_j6kklj1 wrote
Ohh ok that makes sense.
Aconite13X t1_j6hq3ls wrote
You just pulled numbers out of your ass. Here's an actual article which gives real numbers. Not your made up fantasy.
pm_your_masterpiece t1_j6fmjee wrote
They don't care, just want more if you're tax money.
69FunnyNumberGuy420 t1_j6iclxt wrote
A significant proportion of Pennsylvania's population saw their first paycheck at age 16 had deductions taken out, and have been mad ever since.
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