But, you know, that's only if, like, we really care about actually helping the people at the bottom. In other words, HELL NO!

A UBI would be better than the current welfare system (though almost anything would). In my ideal world, taxes would be collected from the unimproved value of land, natural resources, and taxes on pollution and spent by the state to run natural monopolies (roads, railways, police...etc) with the leftovers being distributed in the form of a citizens dividend.

Man, I nominate you for office. If you don't want the position, so much the better. You'd be more than most of us deserve.

Every time I try to hash out tax policy I remember some ahole decreeing that "everyone has to help row the boat" and I go crosseyed with rage trying to picture my 90yr old bedridden grandmother being pressganged into service when she can't even afford her medication. Maybe I'm the ahole here, I don't know.

But I'll go to my grave swearing that anyone who tries to take a single cent in income or property tax from a person living below the poverty line for the area they live in needs to have their f**king hands cut off. (Deducting it from entitlements may be another story.) I'm all for taxes, don't get me wrong...just set the standard deduction at the poverty line for the area in which a person lives so they aren't ground into dust by the very government intended to protect them.

Rant mode off, and I applaud your progressive stance on taxes!

when i become old enough to vote, i'm voting you as president of usa.