I'm gonna do a quick mini-rant. Used to live in a medium-sized southern city. I worked 40-50 hours construction in the summer in residential houses before the AC was in the house. Trimming out the whole house and hardware. 1 or 2 a day, sometimes 6 days a week. Developed a foot fungus because of the sweat.
Started doing DoorDash and Grubhub delivery apps for about 15-30 hours a week on top of that for extra money. I could pull in about 18 an hour pre-taxes. Paychecks were nice.
I'd bust my ass doing trim with no AC, then go work the apps for 3-5 hours a night. It hit me one night while I was delivering to the damn projects two blocks away from my expensive ass apartment. Smelling weed everywhere. Nobody's working because you can smell weed at literally any time of day. 11 AM, 3 PM, midnight. Weed. I deliver to these projects on the first of the month. Answering the door with beers and weed smoke. No tip. I'm busting my ass and my hard work if supplementing their lives. They live in a destination city with expensive ass houses and apartments everywhere. They don't contribute. They live off the working man like leeches. And they don't even give me a dollar tip of my own money back.
I still get pissed thinking about it, obviously. Didn't really have to work that much at the time but two paychecks is sweet. Now I'm making much more so my side work nowadays is not as common but higher paying. I'm gonna go drink a beer.
Nah, everybody has radical thoughts, but few people act on them. If you were to hear what people really thought you'd be extremely shocked. But I don't think that makes you crazy or anything, it's probably way more common than you believe.
Well said, but blacks would almost never tip me and they would treat me like shit the whole meal, call me racist names, laugh at me and ask for shit they don’t need plus they eat all their meal, complain, get another one for free and demand a 100% discount. It’s commonly known the restaurant industry that most are cheap skate bastards
I would be all for the drug testing if the state paid the bill for it, which would make it constitutional. I wouldn't mind a small tax to pay for the testing, say a nickle a week from everyone should more than cover it. A three strike clause: first, get retested, second would be a 3 month suspension of benefits, third would be permanent denial like convicted felons. It would mean a shit tonne of savings in the long run. Excess at the end of the year would be raffled away as a lottery, because we can't trust the politicians with any extra money.
Coming from a college-grad in STEM. I see this from a slightly different perspective.
I worked my (insert word for posterior) off to get my loan paid ($100k - thank you hazard pay temp assignment) and now I see tons of people just wanting to vote for their student loans to be forgiven. And I've worked with some of these people, they drive new cars, spend money frivolously, and ignore their financial obligations. It hurts to see that my hard work could mean nothing if they get those loans forgiven.
Here's the positive side though. We are better prepared at life. When things go bad, when things collapse, we'll be better prepared to weather the storm and/or benefit. When COVID happened, I had saved a small chunk of money (started saving since I recently paid my loans off) and threw it all into the stock market. I can't exactly buy a fancy car with it, but it's extremely encouraging.
I'm hoping I can have enough money saved to buy some property / a house when land values drop. Everyone is buying land / houses like crazy (and far above value) right now and it seems unsustainable. Interest rates are currently very low.
I'd be fine with ditching both time and a half with payroll taxes. Limiting most people to 40 hours a week is bogus. How much time you spend and how much you get paid for it is between you and your employer.
When was 40 hours a limit? It isn't, it just means they have to pay me more if I go over that threshold. And I'm fine with that. Places like Wal-Mart would schedule people seven days a fucking week if they could work them without worrying about paying OT.
If you're on the schedule and you don't show up for that shift, you're terminated. So it isn't "however many hours they want." It's however many hours Wal-Mart would work them. Which is all of the hours.
The 32 hours or benefits kick in thing doesn't work like that either. Wal-Mart works "part time" people 40 hours a week routinely. Designated as part time, they don't get benefits. No one outside Wal-Mart is looking in to make sure these people are getting the shit they deserve. You don't get benefits until you're made Full Time.
On top of that, the CEO thinks it's fucking rainbow land and people would work even if they weren't getting paid. He said those words in an interview. "They just love serving. They would do it even without a paycheck."
how about get rid of the employee side payroll tax, and reduce the bottom 3 tax brackets by 4 percent.
so you would pay 6% up to $10k, 8% from 10k to 40k and 18% from 40k to 85k
that would push your effective tax rate ignoring any deductions and assuming you make around the median closer to 10% total for federal. for most people that would be huge.
especially if you live in a low income tax state.
new yorkers and californians would still be pretty boned, but just more reason to move out of the shitholes. then basic economics will require those states to cut taxes to entice people to live there, and of course spend more conservatively, making for a smaller less intrusive state government.
winning all around.
I still want time and a half for overtime though, at minimum. lots of people really depend on those overtime hours. theres a huge difference between 60 hours and 70 hours a week. If you are relying on that overtime pay the option to just work more hours isn't really viable for people who need it most, those with a family and both parents working.
Maybe phase out overtime pay or legal protection for it at multiples of the median wage, that way it won't be exploited by overpaid government goons as it is now, or union contracts for $150/hr "prevailing wage" that is actually over a hundred dollars per hour more than any private sector job before overtime!
anyway, I trust the Trump, lower taxes for the masses, it encourages and rewards workers the way it should be.
then basic economics will require those states to cut taxes to entice people to live there
That's rich. States abiding by advice of economists. HA! More likely, the high taxes will continue because of a huge burdensome debt. Services will drop.
The rest of what you say, however, I haven't thought through yet.
Playing devil’s advocate here, if you’re an employee why wouldn’t you limit the work week to 40 if you get the same pay? If your coworker works 65 hours for the same pay as you, that will start to become the expectation for all employees, so employees would be working for less, due to working more hours for the same pay.
Some employers would offer overtime pay as an incentive to work more.
BUT
Currently alot of employers don't want to pay overtime so you are just stuck at a max of 40 hours a week. (32 because of ACA. Thanks obama!)
If you want more than 40 (32) hours worth of pay you would need a second job with all the headaches that entails. Many employees would rather just get more hours at a primary job even without OT.
Its not like its a permanent thing, unless you are mentally deficient you won't be working a minimum wage job forever.
I worked at MCDs for 6 years out of high school to qualify my opinion
There is a difference between same pay and same pay per hour. I said the one with fewer syllables but meant the longer one.
40 hrs at $10 per hour = $400 a week
65 hrs at $10 per hour = $650 a week
65 hrs with time and a half (normal) = $775 a week
Right now the middle is not an option, but it is obviously better for someone that wants to get ahead. Making it available might make some lucky few at the third option move down. But those lucky few are essentially paid $12 an hour, so they can argue with their boss to just pay $12 or $11 no matter how many hours are worked.
I get that, but then it sets the standard that the employer will not pay 1.5 rate.
If Joe is willing to work extra hours at the same hourly pay, but John says that he will only work extra hours at 1.5, the employer will just say that they don’t pay 1.5 OT and if he wants extra hours he has to accept no increase. This effectively undercuts John.
How is that any difference than hiring illegals or H1Bs? They undercut pay and put Americans at a disadvantage.
Of course it does. Work harder and pay more. Someone has to pay for the leeches of society. It’s by the politician design. Make more pay more, Trump needs to push flat tax next term.
Hear hear! Had a disagreement with a left of centre friend who was ranting about taxes, soaking the “rich” the “greedy rich clutching on to all the money” and that they should pay more etc.
I replied that IM considered “rich” compared to some in the world. That the “rich” do pay more, because the more you earn, the more you pay. Even on a flat tax, because well.... that’s how percentages WORK?! That I paid more in income tax than the human I was dating at the time was earning, full time, and how was that fair? So I bust my arse, working 35, 50, 60 hours a week, and the more successful and harder I work, the more the government punishes me and takes off me?
Flat tax, now.
Next thing they will be taxing the air.
Oh.... wait...they did that already (carbon tax). If carbon tax really was as legit and as dangerous as they say it is, why haven’t the gov fitted everyone up with mandated personal necklace mouth Co2 monitors!?
“ANTI CITIZEN #443245 ATTENTION PLEASE! YOU HAVE USED UP YOUR MAXIMUM ALLOTMENT OF GREENHOUSE GASES. NON MASK WEARING NOTED. CIVIL PROTECTION TEAMS TO SECTOR ALPHA GAMMA 23. CONTAIN....PACIFY...NEUTRALISE...CAUTERISE...”
Yeah the extra on OT makes zero sense.
I'm gonna do a quick mini-rant. Used to live in a medium-sized southern city. I worked 40-50 hours construction in the summer in residential houses before the AC was in the house. Trimming out the whole house and hardware. 1 or 2 a day, sometimes 6 days a week. Developed a foot fungus because of the sweat.
Started doing DoorDash and Grubhub delivery apps for about 15-30 hours a week on top of that for extra money. I could pull in about 18 an hour pre-taxes. Paychecks were nice.
I'd bust my ass doing trim with no AC, then go work the apps for 3-5 hours a night. It hit me one night while I was delivering to the damn projects two blocks away from my expensive ass apartment. Smelling weed everywhere. Nobody's working because you can smell weed at literally any time of day. 11 AM, 3 PM, midnight. Weed. I deliver to these projects on the first of the month. Answering the door with beers and weed smoke. No tip. I'm busting my ass and my hard work if supplementing their lives. They live in a destination city with expensive ass houses and apartments everywhere. They don't contribute. They live off the working man like leeches. And they don't even give me a dollar tip of my own money back.
I still get pissed thinking about it, obviously. Didn't really have to work that much at the time but two paychecks is sweet. Now I'm making much more so my side work nowadays is not as common but higher paying. I'm gonna go drink a beer.
Lyndon Johnson bloated the welfare state monster created by Franklin Roosevelt. Working Americans have been paying for it ever since.
Nah, everybody has radical thoughts, but few people act on them. If you were to hear what people really thought you'd be extremely shocked. But I don't think that makes you crazy or anything, it's probably way more common than you believe.
His username is “Flip Barry from reddit.” I take that as meaning he is Filipino.
Fuck those roaches!!!! Blacks go my restaurant to be racist to and demean me, that’s part of why I had to quit
Well said, but blacks would almost never tip me and they would treat me like shit the whole meal, call me racist names, laugh at me and ask for shit they don’t need plus they eat all their meal, complain, get another one for free and demand a 100% discount. It’s commonly known the restaurant industry that most are cheap skate bastards
drug testing for welfare.
Ill pop a cold one with you, pede.
One thing that I really wish would happen in Term 2 is cut welfare.
Or just drug testing for welfare.
Potheads can buy their weed on their own dime.
I would be all for the drug testing if the state paid the bill for it, which would make it constitutional. I wouldn't mind a small tax to pay for the testing, say a nickle a week from everyone should more than cover it. A three strike clause: first, get retested, second would be a 3 month suspension of benefits, third would be permanent denial like convicted felons. It would mean a shit tonne of savings in the long run. Excess at the end of the year would be raffled away as a lottery, because we can't trust the politicians with any extra money.
Excess budgeted as a refund equally distributed to all taxpayers
Take the cost out of benefits themselves. A nickel here and a penny there will eventually end up as dollars.
Totally agree. Problem is, they'd say it's medical.
That's checkers.
Time to play chess.
Wanna claim medical?
Now it's a whole new ball of wax and paperwork.
Fuck em and fuck em again.
Would that make much of a difference? I thought most welfare dollars come from the state level.
Coming from a college-grad in STEM. I see this from a slightly different perspective.
I worked my (insert word for posterior) off to get my loan paid ($100k - thank you hazard pay temp assignment) and now I see tons of people just wanting to vote for their student loans to be forgiven. And I've worked with some of these people, they drive new cars, spend money frivolously, and ignore their financial obligations. It hurts to see that my hard work could mean nothing if they get those loans forgiven.
Here's the positive side though. We are better prepared at life. When things go bad, when things collapse, we'll be better prepared to weather the storm and/or benefit. When COVID happened, I had saved a small chunk of money (started saving since I recently paid my loans off) and threw it all into the stock market. I can't exactly buy a fancy car with it, but it's extremely encouraging.
I'm hoping I can have enough money saved to buy some property / a house when land values drop. Everyone is buying land / houses like crazy (and far above value) right now and it seems unsustainable. Interest rates are currently very low.
I'd be fine with ditching both time and a half with payroll taxes. Limiting most people to 40 hours a week is bogus. How much time you spend and how much you get paid for it is between you and your employer.
When was 40 hours a limit? It isn't, it just means they have to pay me more if I go over that threshold. And I'm fine with that. Places like Wal-Mart would schedule people seven days a fucking week if they could work them without worrying about paying OT.
And those people could get however many hours they want. But now, they can't get 32 or else the benefits kick in, so the worker gets neither.
If Walmart employee's got 70 hours a week with no overtime or benefits, they'd still be much better off.
Instead people have to find two or three jobs and work out that scheduling nightmare to get enough hours.
If you're on the schedule and you don't show up for that shift, you're terminated. So it isn't "however many hours they want." It's however many hours Wal-Mart would work them. Which is all of the hours.
The 32 hours or benefits kick in thing doesn't work like that either. Wal-Mart works "part time" people 40 hours a week routinely. Designated as part time, they don't get benefits. No one outside Wal-Mart is looking in to make sure these people are getting the shit they deserve. You don't get benefits until you're made Full Time.
On top of that, the CEO thinks it's fucking rainbow land and people would work even if they weren't getting paid. He said those words in an interview. "They just love serving. They would do it even without a paycheck."
how about get rid of the employee side payroll tax, and reduce the bottom 3 tax brackets by 4 percent.
so you would pay 6% up to $10k, 8% from 10k to 40k and 18% from 40k to 85k
that would push your effective tax rate ignoring any deductions and assuming you make around the median closer to 10% total for federal. for most people that would be huge.
especially if you live in a low income tax state.
new yorkers and californians would still be pretty boned, but just more reason to move out of the shitholes. then basic economics will require those states to cut taxes to entice people to live there, and of course spend more conservatively, making for a smaller less intrusive state government.
winning all around.
I still want time and a half for overtime though, at minimum. lots of people really depend on those overtime hours. theres a huge difference between 60 hours and 70 hours a week. If you are relying on that overtime pay the option to just work more hours isn't really viable for people who need it most, those with a family and both parents working.
Maybe phase out overtime pay or legal protection for it at multiples of the median wage, that way it won't be exploited by overpaid government goons as it is now, or union contracts for $150/hr "prevailing wage" that is actually over a hundred dollars per hour more than any private sector job before overtime!
anyway, I trust the Trump, lower taxes for the masses, it encourages and rewards workers the way it should be.
That's rich. States abiding by advice of economists. HA! More likely, the high taxes will continue because of a huge burdensome debt. Services will drop.
The rest of what you say, however, I haven't thought through yet.
Playing devil’s advocate here, if you’re an employee why wouldn’t you limit the work week to 40 if you get the same pay? If your coworker works 65 hours for the same pay as you, that will start to become the expectation for all employees, so employees would be working for less, due to working more hours for the same pay.
Some employers would offer overtime pay as an incentive to work more.
BUT
Currently alot of employers don't want to pay overtime so you are just stuck at a max of 40 hours a week. (32 because of ACA. Thanks obama!)
If you want more than 40 (32) hours worth of pay you would need a second job with all the headaches that entails. Many employees would rather just get more hours at a primary job even without OT.
Its not like its a permanent thing, unless you are mentally deficient you won't be working a minimum wage job forever.
I worked at MCDs for 6 years out of high school to qualify my opinion
There is a difference between same pay and same pay per hour. I said the one with fewer syllables but meant the longer one.
40 hrs at $10 per hour = $400 a week 65 hrs at $10 per hour = $650 a week 65 hrs with time and a half (normal) = $775 a week
Right now the middle is not an option, but it is obviously better for someone that wants to get ahead. Making it available might make some lucky few at the third option move down. But those lucky few are essentially paid $12 an hour, so they can argue with their boss to just pay $12 or $11 no matter how many hours are worked.
I get that, but then it sets the standard that the employer will not pay 1.5 rate.
If Joe is willing to work extra hours at the same hourly pay, but John says that he will only work extra hours at 1.5, the employer will just say that they don’t pay 1.5 OT and if he wants extra hours he has to accept no increase. This effectively undercuts John.
How is that any difference than hiring illegals or H1Bs? They undercut pay and put Americans at a disadvantage.
Tax rate on OT punishes productivity. It's such bullshit.
Of course it does. Work harder and pay more. Someone has to pay for the leeches of society. It’s by the politician design. Make more pay more, Trump needs to push flat tax next term.
Hear hear! Had a disagreement with a left of centre friend who was ranting about taxes, soaking the “rich” the “greedy rich clutching on to all the money” and that they should pay more etc.
I replied that IM considered “rich” compared to some in the world. That the “rich” do pay more, because the more you earn, the more you pay. Even on a flat tax, because well.... that’s how percentages WORK?! That I paid more in income tax than the human I was dating at the time was earning, full time, and how was that fair? So I bust my arse, working 35, 50, 60 hours a week, and the more successful and harder I work, the more the government punishes me and takes off me?
Flat tax, now.
Next thing they will be taxing the air.
Oh.... wait...they did that already (carbon tax). If carbon tax really was as legit and as dangerous as they say it is, why haven’t the gov fitted everyone up with mandated personal necklace mouth Co2 monitors!?
“ANTI CITIZEN #443245 ATTENTION PLEASE! YOU HAVE USED UP YOUR MAXIMUM ALLOTMENT OF GREENHOUSE GASES. NON MASK WEARING NOTED. CIVIL PROTECTION TEAMS TO SECTOR ALPHA GAMMA 23. CONTAIN....PACIFY...NEUTRALISE...CAUTERISE...”
Carbon tax won’t ever be enacted because it will impact the virtue signaling Hollywood pedos and their private jets
It was enacted up here in Canada. Hilarity ensued as everything spiked up in price.