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Look at “drain the swamp” from the man himself, here it covers what you said but also involves a direct reduction in the size of government: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/01/pres...

> The total income of people in the top 1% that year was $3.3 trillion, and they paid $560 billion in income taxes

3.3 trillion * actually paying the current top tax 37% is an additional ~700 billion in revenue or roughly half the nominal deficit. I don’t think making the effective tax rate 37% vs nominally 37% is particularly unpalatable. (We can also quibble about the income definition used but that’s a separate issue.)

So 50% from wealthy + 50% from companies doesn’t seem ludicrous on the surface.

However actually balancing the books nominally means inflation on the 37T national debt is effectively paid off each year. That 700 ish billion @2% in ‘hidden’ revenue meaning just from wealthy tax payers we are breaking even in real terms. Debt then shrinks with growth in the overall economy.

> It was never more than about 30%

Corporate income taxes are only one category. Companies pay tariffs and fees etc. Ultimately all taxes are coming from individuals or organizations which is a meaningful distinction due to foreign stock ownership. When created half of payroll tax came from companies as essentially a tax on workers the other half reduced employe paychecks. Every time they increased the rate the same thing happened where employe paychecks shrank by half the increase.

Excluding 1/2 of payroll from corporate taxation actually makes the reduction in their tax burden much larger. This is really bad for the US population because of foreign owners.

> The massive reduction of corporate income tax as a source of tax revenue has happened across the entire developed world.

Lobbying works. However, companies do still pay quite a bit in taxes and can be forced to pay significantly more. Asian countries for example get about double from corporate income tax vs OECD. It’s a political choice not some impossible goal. https://www.oecd.org/en/data/datasets/global-revenue-statist...



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