TheBetterGame Same, but for me, I enjoy their debates whichh I loveee to see the results. Also, I'm studying BA, tho, this is an assignment for us students.
Don't want to be rude but not for all the money of the world I would move to the US. A country this divided, with no healthcare system and that much guns/gun violence sounds not like a great place to live. Though you have many beautiful landscapes in your country and I bet more than half of the people living there are very decent.
i agree with manatee man, most Americans don't have the education or time ( or both) to stop and research about government policies. Your channel is a great resource for those who want to learn about politics without the scary wall of complicated terminology and big words.
+Thien Nguyen And most important(for me at least)is almost no political bias. I never stop hearing from Republican talk shows about how Democrats are less than human. And is it too much to ask of Democrats to not punish big business just because they are successful. We have almost 20 trillion dollars of debt(at the time of this post), if we as Americans are going to tackle it, it will take all of us, and paying off debt ALWAYS hurts while you are doing it but we can do it.
This comment section is the reason I love Nerdfighteria. Most people are open for discussions, asking the important and interesting questions and if they are not they are at least appreciating a quality video packed full with information. This comment section restores my hope in humanity every time :) Have a nice day everybody.
This may get buried, but I wanted to say this is an awesome video! I mentioned after the last tax video that it seemed partisan and so wasn't strictly educational, but this one had a really cool, clear line between the strictly factual (and multi-perspective) portion and the slightly more op ed about why a deficit is a bad thing. I doubt it was my input that made this happen, but I'm really happy with the change. Keep making great stuff!
The input is appreciated, and so are the kind words. I think it's very hard to make a video like this without sounding partisan, but I tried to be conscious of my biases and counter them in my thinking and sources insofar as possible. (But I also didn't want to create a false equivalence!) -John
I will admit I did not understand all of this but what I did greatly increased my understanding on the candidates tax plans. Numbers quickly overwhelm me so I admit I had not made much of an attempt to learn about this but I am glad to have it explained to me. Thank you for this John.
There should be more videos like this so I can actually know what both candidates plans are, because during the debate you learn nothing but who can come up with witty zinger
To be fair, there is much information available on the candidates' websites alone that goes far beyond what's covered in the debates. That doesn't excuse the debates being ridiculous corporate propaganda fests of disinformation, but you *can* know these things, and one could make the argument that one should actively seek information. After all, opinions shaped from passively received information are low hanging fruit for those who would engineer the flows of information to certain demographics.
+ThePatriotMuckraker Hillary is accused too and she just stop with the propaganda in the debates.....but trump doesn't let it go sooo...yeah....the media plays a big part but we got to be honest hillary is being attack too yet she finds a way to stop those rumors out of the debate something that donlad finds hard to do
Adrian Gonzalez I normally pay no attention to this sort of thing. But because elections are tomorrow , and this is my first election I can vote in I want to be absolutely sure . Rn I'm thinking libertarian just to wash my hands of this mess. So far. But yeah.
If you really are a fiscal conservative and care about the debt, voting for Trump is voting for complete fiscal irresponsibility and crippling deficits much like the Bush tax cuts.
Yes, but us Canadians are deeply linked to America's state of affairs. If the US collaspses it'd be bad for us too (although not as bad as they got it).
Some responses to your comments! (Click read more to expand this comment.) 1. Why didn't you talk about Gary Johnson or Jill Stein's tax proposals? Partly because neither of them is going to be the next President, and partly because neither has released a detailed-enough proposal to compare it to the Clinton and Trump plans, which are (if nothing else) detailed and robust. 2. @Slidtax explains below that debt to GDP ratio is not always a good guide of when public debt gets expensive: Japan has had a very high debt to GDP ratio for a long time, for instance. 3. A few of you have asked if candidates ever keep their promises. Surprisingly, they mostly do: fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/ 4. A few people have asked me for an example of the kind of serious and thoughtful Republican budget proposals I mention in the video. The Paul Ryan-led Republican Congressional proposal is one, which you can read about here: taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-2016-house-republican-tax-reform-plan It certainly isn't revenue-neutral, and you may not LIKE the proposals set forth by it, but they are serious and careful. 5. Many of you have asked about Clinton's estate tax proposal: Currently, if you are married (or were when one spouse died), the estate tax exemption is $11,000,000, and the estate tax is 40%--so if your business or estate is worth, say, $12,000,000, your beneficiaries would pay $400,000 in estate taxes when you die and they inherit your business/assets/whatever. (This $400,000 would likely be paid over 10 years, or possibly more, as I understand it.) Clinton would lower the exemption to $7,000,000, and the estate tax would be 45%. So the same hypothetical business would pay $2,250,000 in estate taxes (probably over 10 years). Whether or not a business with $7,000,000 in assets and $0 in liabilities is a "small business" depends on your definition of small, I guess, but that's the proposal. I'll edit this response to include more answers to any questions you might have; just reply here. Thanks! -John
Do you happen to know what kind of accountability there is for presidential nominees to follow through with the parameters of the tax changes they propose before they are elected? For example, if Hilary gets elected, she can't suddenly change her tax plans dramatically to benefit the wealthy? Or if Trump gets elected, and he sees how devastating his plan will be in the long term GDP debt, can he make changes so that the damage isn't so steep?
well said since the Republican and Democratic party has too much power and leave third party too small to rise up and leave it more Democratic process and society
Being poor is WAY WAY WAY WAY worse than being over taxed. The reason you may not know this is bc you've never been poor. Or don't know anyone who is. Not having a doctor and not having a second jet ski are different things.
I think it's better if some people are helped and some aren't, than if nobody is helped. Innocent until proven guilty, right? I'd rather help a mix of innocent and guilty than not help any of the innocents just bc of the guilty.
I think the fundamental difference here is that I'd be okay with helping some assholes if it meant helping some good people too, and you wouldn't. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's the kind of thing you can't change your mind on. *edit for grammar
Thanks for mentioning the bit about the debt spiral. I'm here at the LSE and it's difficult for my fellow Americans (who are not also studying European politics) to understand the concern about sovereign debt, not just here but in the rest of the world. It's definitely something we don't get educated on and even though I predict that the next debt crisis will be similar to the last (not like Greece, but more like a Spain or Ireland - private debt being assumed by public institutions inadequate to handle it) it's important that people know the general outline of what it looks like and why they should be wary. As always, the video was pithy and (I think) intelligible to those outside the field. Kudos!
everyone likes to wag their finger at Greece, but they weren't able to print their own money to invest in the country and pull themselves out of the spiral. It's a completely different scenario and literally would literally never happen in the US
Devaluing currency wouldn't actually change the amount of real debt held. If anything, it would further shake faith in our economy and make new debt (for new investment to try and pull us out of the hole) more expensive. Greece is probably the one genuine case of a sovereign debt spiral within the EU and yeah, they were in a difficult spot as countries in the Eurozone can set their own social policy, but not monetary policy. In a similar situation, the US could do more to mitigate the damage, but the damage would still be there. And anyway, my nightmare scenario is much more about the "fake sovereign debt" or "publicly assumed private debt" scenario happening again, and being more than our overall GDP.
Jacqueline Noël Manuel I think you misunderstood my comment. You can't print money to get yourself out of a debt spiral but you can print money to invest in infrastructure which (as history is shown) is the only reliable way of getting yourself out of a debt spiral.
I don't see why politicians are the ones that decides what to pay in taxes. Why not use mathematicians to find the optimal taxing for given conditions.
You guys are amazing.....I posted this to facebook and G+. You explain every issue in 10 minutes, where the parties seem to leave nothing explained - Thank you
I'm not sure if you've already made a video on this issue, but I would love if you guys made a video talking about the North Dakota Pipeline. It's an issue that's incredibly important to me that I'm trying to bring attention to, and I feel like you two would be able to inform people about it well.
Tomáš Viktorin well someone can work two minimum wage jobs and hardly pay for necessaries while working extremely hard while someone with a much higher paying job can work just as hard but would have more vacations, more money, much better working environment and mental health and so would be in a much better position to pay higher taxes.
"Fair share" doesn't mean "some set amount that's the same for everyone". It means "the amount they can afford to pay without causing themselves economic distress". If someone works several jobs and can barely afford to feed and shelter their family, their fair share is much less than that of someone who makes millions of dollars each year (assuming, as I believe it can be assumed, that food and shelter cost the same, on average, for everyone in the country).
malbolt So you are saying that till these two jobs feel the same (have same benefit to worker) the better should be taxed to the point of eqalibrium? Thats what it looks like from what you wrote. He has more time free tax him more he has better enviroment tax him more. he has bigger income and pays bigger taxes baseline tax him more.
Tomáš Viktorin Fine, let's go with one of the least expensive places to live in the US: Harlingen, TX. The cost of living there is about $23,222/year. Full-time at $5/hr is still less than half that amount as well. Thanks for supporting my lack of a car, but I don't do it for the environment. I do it because, even though I'm employed and making more than minimum wage, I still can't afford a car. And I'm not happy about that; it severely limits my job prospects because public transportation isn't adequate for a daily commute unless you live in an urban city, which I don't. Flat tax rates would NOT be the fairest way in principle. Fair is about comparing what you pay to what you can afford to pay, not comparing it to what other people pay. And you cannot compare a percentage of one value directly to a percentage of a different value--that's just bad math. The rich do not pay their fair share because they can afford to pay far more than they do compared to the poor who can't.
TL dr Hillary's plan doesn't change much, and Trump's plan is not real because he doesn't understand how the system works. Trump will just be Pence puppet in the end.
There need to be more videos like this for the public, because 80% of the debates just consist of them insulting each other personally and not talking about anything significant.
I like that most of John's political videos are "Here's an educated reason why X is probably better than Y, but neither X nor Y will be the supposed end of all creation that many claim."
Yeah, pretty much. I think the polarized political debate in the U.S. leads to a lot of "THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING." And that's probably not true. But a debt spiral really would be catastrophic to the U.S. for a generation, and it's something I felt like I had to acknowledge given how extreme the shortfall is in the Trump plan. -John
You could pay significantly less on healthcare if you switched up your system. John & Hank's Healthcare Triage channel has a great run down of some popular systems worldwide (E.g. Canada, France, Germany, Singapore, the UK, etc) that provide better coverage at a lower cost to both patients and the government.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel so ill-equipped to vote in the upcoming election and it is absolutely nerve-wracking. Also, John, I am having difficulty imagining Trump complexly. ^-^
I absolutely love when you make these kinds of policy videos! I'm a policy and politics geek, and am unfortunately aware - through countless conversations - that many of my fellow younger Millennials don't really know how or where to find information about either candidates' policies. According to Pew, Millennials recently outstripped Baby Boomers as America's largest living generation (pewrsr.ch/1TjzRYp), so I am most excited that these videos might be able to reach younger members of my generation. So, thank you so, so much for videos like these and please do more of them! I'm not exaggerating when I say that these videos - with the potential to activate and inspire millions of young people and get them to start engaging in the process -are a great service to the future of civic engagement in this country.
Only Trump's tax plan is available to the public. Clinton has a public policy and a private one. That and Clinton is corrupt so you are either accepting what Trump has to offer with the knowledge that Trump will face heavy resistance from congress or voting for corruption.
Dear Northern Americans, (yes including Canada and especially Mexico) I wish you all the best of luck for the coming years. They might be tough. Especially if you live in the USA. But keep going! To me, you are worth more alive than dead. Or broke. So with the best of luck from europe, Go out and VOTE! (if you can)
First off, thanks for the analysis! A two quick questions for you! 1. Going off of usdebtclock, our national debt is 106% (19.6/18.5) of our GDP. Why is this number not used instead of the 76% you used? 2. Another big part of federal spending is healthcare. Working in the industry, I see money being hemorrhaged every day out of government accounts, often not helping the intended patients. Can you outline how the two candidates intend to reform healthcare costs, and how this will change spending?
In the video he was talking about public debt, not overall debt. It's more significant because our ability to pay off those public debts are what keeps those interest rates so low. If our public held debts were higher than our gdp then the interest rates would increase.
I'm also curious about this. He references a scary 100-110 range, but my understanding was always that this range generally concerned overall debt-to-GDP ratio and that economists are already very nervous about this. (If anything, this reinforces John's point, but I don't understand why he's using the numbers he's using)
you people seem to forget the fact that what is gained debt wise from income tax revenue would be counterbalanced by better foreign trade deals. Now, before you people get up in arms about how countries "wont buy in" on his policies, you have to remember: we are America. America is the WORLDS LARGEST CONSUMER. We have the worlds largest import rates and a lot of countries economies RELY on us to continue purchasing their exports. If we were to use that to our advantage we would see ASTRONOMICAL economic growth because right now we are just letting other countries basically run all over us in that department. Let us not forget that we are a Capitalistic Republic, and our country runs (in its most basic state) like a business, something Trump knows how to run. So I believe that with his foreign policies we would see economic growth the likes we haven't seen in decades. Now, there is always a chance that nobody will buy into his policies and go elsewhere for trade. However, that is ALWAYS a possibility. This video's numbers are just on INCOME TAX plans, not FULL ECONOMIC plans, so to say "He WILL raise the nation debt by X amount!" is actually kind of intellectually dishonest because this is just one portion of the economy. And Hillary's plans, from what I've seen, is just a continuation of what we have today, which is stagnation at this point. Her plan changes little to nothing economically from what I've seen. I'm sure the difference was lost in an email or something
Honestly Trump refuses to release tax returns. You're just 'assuming' that he's a good business man. And it's 100% clear that if Trump's plan doesn't 1. rustle up foreign trade or 2. get people to continue business within US then he's going to effectively cripple US much further than any other president has before. The question asked by this video and by every sensible person is why leave this gamble to someone that clearly isn't completely forthright with his own income (I mean listen to the debates, he's clearly hiding things about his wealth), also clearly someone abandoned by all parties? I feel that this election is comparable to Brexit in that people are just voting for Trump as a proxy for 'major changes that MIGHT help', while not fully realizing the implications of such a vote.
So what? No matter how good a trade deal is, the US government would see so little of that money (as he explained in the video). Yes, people will have more money (a little more, unless you're already rich). But the government would have to run a huge deficit.
+Naturalrice Why would the people keep voting for something that isn't working? We know Hillary cant be trusted, and it's certain she will either keep the economy constant or worsen it. Trump, who has turned millions into billions, has a history of success. Hillary has a history of failure and lies. The reason the Republicans and democrats don't like Trump is because he wont do what either says just for the party to gain power. He actually wants to help Americans. Hillary is just a political puppet. How long has Hillary been involved in government? And how much good has she done for the country? America needs to be our first priority. Trump will put America first, unlike Obama has and unlike Clinton would. All of this, and a lot of people are pissed off that she slid out of being prosecuted by the FBI when she has clearly committed the act and attempted a cover-up.
There is no rational reason to support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton. Edit: I need to go to bed. I typed the wrong candidate in my original post. God I need sleep.
There are many many reason to vote for someone other than Hillary. Trump is very far from a good candidate, however Hillary is proven herself to be everything but honest, trustworthy, and has a horrible track record for supporting horrible foreign policies and American legislation.
The only social program big enough big enough where lowering spending would be possible is Social Security, and I doubt you want to see more homeless seniors.
then let them work for at least two more years, they retire at 65 and stay in that system until 83 min. so you have 15 years of support to that person, the system was made to support people of almost 50 years ago that lived until 63 so it was a mirracle that a person could get the first paiment.
Well there's definitely a leaning in this video if you understand the basics of what conservatives believe. He was heavily negative about the government not getting more tax revenue, but conservatives are anti-big gov't. So to a conservative the government having less money/ power, and cutting down on public agencies are a plus.
You honestly don't need an accountant or CPA unless you run a small business. Everything is pretty step by step and even the IRS made it really easy by integrating the Turbo Tax system.
For a long time I went to a big accounting company for my taxes but then I borrowed a friends TurboTax and went back and "double checked" my accountants numbers- within about 20 dollars for the 4 years I checked. Since then I just buy the online program. My taxes aren't too complicated, but I have uniforms, equipment and mileage/ car depreciation that I write off.
That moment when you realize that the half of Americans who pay no taxes at all are the ones consistently accusing the other half of not paying "their fair share". Also, $2 Trillion added to the national debt over 10 years is pocket change compared to the $11 Trillion Obama added over 8 years. Sure, I'd rather not add more to the debt, but I don't want anyone's taxes to go up either. Washington doesn't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem; giving them more money will only exacerbate their addiction.
The budget was balanced and generating surplus under Clinton, until the George W Bush administration nonsensical tax plans and foreign adventuring. It is the height of hypocrisy to blame Obama if you know, or complete idiocy if you don't know that simple fact.
TOM P Ah! The myth of Clinton's balanced budget. Yeah, that's what it looks like when you only look at public debt, but when you also look at intragovernment debt, then the picture looks a whole lot different. The U.S overall debt hasn't gone down by a penny in decades. Educate yourself about how government debt actually works, and then come back to me about the Clinton surplus myth.
You can see here how it slows down/goes down halfway through the 90s (Clinton era) and the first years of Bush (before the tax cuts): upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/USDebt.png Then it rises dramatically during the great recession.
A few things: - The Obama Administration didn't add $11T during their time in office. It's much closet to $7.5T. Now that's not great but, much of that was inherited from the FY09 budget built under the Bush Administration (albeit, it was a Democratic Congress). The Washington Post did a pretty good job of looking at all the numbers and angles that the debt gets espoused. Personally, I prefer to look at the debt increased by percentage, which would put the Obama Administration behind the Reagan Administration and the Bush II Administration and just ahead of the Bush I Administration (this goes back for 50 years): www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/07/the-story-behind-obama-and-the-national-debt-in-7-charts/ - The $2.2T to $7.4T in increased projected debt for the Trump Administration is over and beyond what is already projected for the next 10 years. Currently the CBO projects the deficit to increase by $9.4T* over the next 10 years: Page 5: www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51129-2016Outlook_OneCol-2.pdf By increasing the debt by an additional $2.2T then you're looking at a total increase of ~61.3%. However, if it goes to an additional $7.4T then you're looking at a 90% increase in the overall debt, which would outpace every administration except the Reagan Administration. Also, that's how you move from ~86% - 88% of GDP to 105% - 110% of GDP and become Greece. *I am going by memory here so forgive me if I am off but: I believe the CBO projected a $2T surplus over 10 years during the FY02 debate for tax cuts. The tax cuts were meant to cut that to a $1T surplus. We ended up with a $9T deficit so, the CBO was off by a whopping $10T over 10 years. Not good.
I'm gonna be completely honest: Their tax policies are the thing I'm least concerned about when it comes to making a decision on who to vote for. I'm significantly more interested in their positions on social issues because I can not, in good consciousness, vote for anyone who's platform is as anti-lgbtq+ and anti-women as Trump's is.
That's less of an issue for the executive and more for the legislature and the judiciary (i.e. Congress, Senate and the Courts). Neither major Presidential candidate is going to be able to do much to change peoples' rights. For many of the LGBT and Women's rights issues, it is actually your states and not the federal government which is the source of progress/conservatism.
Well, to be quite frank then, you're voting for the wrong reasons. The President doesn't have much say in what social policies are enacted other than veto power over bills coming up from Congress that can be overridden if the situation allows it. A President holds more sway over economic projections of the United States than social projections, and even then, that's not saying a whole lot because, as mentioned prior, the bills come up from Congress.
Julia Caplan I believe Alberta's in the grips of a serious recession and your economic growth is way down from just a few years ago. Sure we have silly national politics here in the US but we still beat Canada on a number of very significant positive and normative quality of life measures. True you may have better social programs but I wouldn't be so quick to judge US.
I don't get it. People keep telling me that Trumps a business man. That's supposed to be his big selling point. I'm starting to think Donald Trump might be incompetent.
+Chris Wallace - If Trump would release his tax returns, we would have a better idea of how good a businessman he really is. Accrding to him, his strength is his business acumen, yet he expects us to just take his word for it.
Not when fact checked against a non partisan conservative leaning website. Can we stop just throwing the word biased around. Facts have a bias called right and wrong, there is no netural.
+Stephanie Palacios Facts are never biased. It's interpreting and presenting facts that become bias. And that's where the wall of accepting biased views crash down
Let's be honest here. Taxation isn't a problem. Government spending is. I would happily pay a little more in tax if it meant that a decent government was spending the money wisely.
I agree, I would happily pay more taxes if the money went to say, education, rather than the ridiculous amounts we spend on the military per year. We constantly complain that we're behind other countries in education, but we do practically nothing to improve it.
precisely, and that would be the cost of having a truly great nation. something you (i'm from Britain) can all be proud of, and a good future to look forward to.
The general belief that "taxation is theft" and that people want to pay as little tax as possible, but also have free healthcare and get their potholes fixed asap is just plain rotten - dare I say even arrogant and entitled. These things must be paid for somehow - and the government doesn't make money, it only spends.
Hrishikesh Krishnakumar I've seen this phrase a lot lately, could you please explain what do you mean? I see taxes as basically rent paid to the government for the basic services given. the amount of taxes any person payes is not constant because if you demand the same amount from everyone, you either get very little services (for an amount that everyone can pay) or you make a large part of the population criminals.
It's theft because you did not consent to the exchange of your money for the "services" the government provides. Also taxing everyone the same amount is still theft. And you don't make anyone a criminal, criminals choose to become a criminal themselves.
You John Green are that teacher who can take any difficult subject or complicated things and easily explain it to anybody at any age. From 5 years old to people who are well into their 60s. But this was still really hard to grasp, I got lost in areas and couldn't keep up. Thanks for taking the time to break it down and trying to explain in laymens terms.
And it's also important to remember that VlogBrothers is notoriously liberal. Not just leaning Liberal, I mean full on Liberal and incredibly biased against Trump.
And yet everything he said here was accurate, factual, and backed up with citations, so which candidate he likes doesn't change anything in this video.
I feel he was being quite conservative in this video, but that might be due to my point of view. Seeing John pointing out that a lot of people do not actually pay taxes was painful, as it is a classic conservative argument for lowering taxes on the rich.
So numbers you can fact check against a conservative non-partisan research group don't matter at all, did you even watch the video? And is it really surprising that John and Hank Green who have a very young fan base don't support someone who has publically made crude remarks about women, a disabled reporter, veterans, latinos, blacks? You don't have to be liberal to be against someone like that. A lot of conservatives (Actual conservatives are), libertarians and moderates too. And why do we throw around the word bias as an insult? Why would anyone be neutral about anything important to them. I remember the Bible mentioning something about not being luke warm if you want to go there...
How can you give such a detailed and specific analysis of Trump's tax plan, when he has released/discussed multiple, conflicting versions of his tax plans throughout the campaign? At least tell us: Which one did you pick? Where's the sauce? EDIT: I see the links in the description. Still, I am dubious of Trump having a single unified "tax plan."
Trump's plan was about tax + taking manufacturing back to US. Hillary is about tax only and everything is the same, or worse because UsA has 500 bils US deficit with China. Thats the only way to make USA better instead of doing nothing about business
HaHD Đặng Hồng Hà Even if you tax corporations way less (or nothing at all). That won't bring manufacturing jobs back to the US unless you also do away with minimum wage.
+I'd hit it The lower tax is the carrot, other policies will be the stick. Trump will not call industries back just by taxation. One of that is the deal with China about currency, making Yuan stronger, so the US will have more advantages. And much more policies can be implemented but the point is to have factories back. Hillary will just do nothing. Oh maybe more about military activities which can be very pointless like Lybia, Yemen
+HaHD Đặng Hồng Hà, so how actually would get Trump the big companies back to the US? Is there any way that China will aggree on your wonderfull deal? The problem might also be another, and that is that the big companies are too powerfull. Actually Trump would not change that to the better, but Hillary would, because she would strenghten the middle class.
For the record, I hate both Trump and Clinton. But I do have a problem when you're going to "compare" the 2 tax plans and when speaking of Clinton you use % (possibly to make it sound like a small impact) but only use large $ amounts when speaking of Trump's plan. Whether you're aware of it or not, that makes your video biased in the way information has been presented. Clearly you're voting for Clinton as you didn't even bother mentioning the other canadites. I was under the impression Vlog Brothers was neutral in polotics but information bias is everywhere it seems.
What do you mean? I said "200 billion dollars over 10 years" when talking about the Clinton tax plan's affect on the debt. Where do I talk about percentages but not real numbers? I didn't mention the other candidates because neither of them has released a comprehensive tax plan with the kind of details I'd need to compare them to the Trump and Clinton tax plans. I'm sorry you felt the video was biased. -John
You're right he did use a percentage when talking about Hillary, but he also gave approximate numbers for both too 200 billion vs. 2 trillion. No it doesn't make him biased as he presented the proposals as is, I am sorry that Trumps plan isn't as good.
I would definitely disagree with the idea that Vlog Brothers is neutral in politics, or even that they try to appear neutral most of the time. They have certainly made politically unbiased political videos (I do not count this video among them), but I think most of the time they have made their left wing bias pretty evident. Although I do consume much of their other content and it is possible I am getting my Dear Hank and John mixed up with my Vlog Brothers content.
I can agree that Mr. Trump is not the ideal candidate, but my vote goes to him because of the Supreme Court. (Literally the only reason.) Please don't assume everyone will either vote for Ms. Clinton or stay home. It feels like your ignoring the other half of the country that does not agree with you.
I think the author of this extremely inaccurate comment meant that you said the effective tax rate for the Roosevelts is going to reach 40% under Clinton's plan, but when you described Trump's plan, you used the absolute values to show that the tax cuts will yield more benefits to the rich. PS. Even hard sciences are biased because of researchers' paradigms. This effect is considerably stronger in social sciencies.
Dominick NL you're right they're an incredibly big factor but they are also a lot harder to predict the effects of. I think that's why he left them out.
According to the US Bureau of Labor, manufacturing output has been increasing pretty consistently since the mid '80s while manufacturing employment has consistently decreased. This isn't a big surprise though, given that advances in technology and automation are consistently helping to make factories more efficient (i.e. we don't need as many people working in factories to produce the same amount of/more goods).
See...this was so much more helpful than the non-answers I've seen in the past two debates. I know substantive answers can be confusing and a turn-off to some voters, but I wish the candidates would have enough respect for the audience to put forth the effort to answer policy questions with this level of substance. As a teacher I can guarantee that with a bit of effort it's not difficult to find a creative way to express this information in a brief, and compelling way.
Who makes the changes to the tax codes does the president actually have that power? Or are these tax plans just the ideal that the candidates are striving for?
+Hooya2 Although as you said, with a 2/3 vote, Congress can override any veto (something that happened quite recently, in fact), so if 2/3 of Congress already wants something to happen in the first place, it will. I'd say that makes them more powerful as a whole.
it games the top comments system. normally, the most controversial comments rise to the top because they get the most replies. Basically, replying with a + 20 times will help the comment rise to the top more than 20 thumbs up.
Thank you for taking the time to make such a thoughtful and well-researched video on the topic! I so wish this was the norm and not the exception as of late.
The US borrows money to pay for its own programs. You can lend the government money (by buying a Treasury Bond) and then the government will pay you back what you gave them, plus interest
Well, that's a really interesting and complicated question. On some level, it makes *sense* to borrow money if we can borrow it at essentially a 0% interest rate. We can use that money to invest in infrastructure and people and thereby grow the economy so that we will have more money to pay off the debt in the future. But on another level, at some point we begin to put ourselves in a position where an economic downturn might turn into a debt spiral not because the economic downturn is so severe, but because our pre-existing debt was too high. I don't think we're very close to that point at the moment, but it's definitely something to be aware of. -John
***** there is an inherent assumption that our economy will grow in a fashion that will eventually pay off the interest (hopefully there is more growth than interest)
Everything, I think. Used in responsible amounts, debt can be used as leverage to create growth. That's the way most all businesses are run, and its the way that the government is supposed to be run. However, we're currently on course to increase the debt beyond what can be considered responsible, and if the U.S. turns into Greece (and defaults on those many trillions of dollars of debt) the world economy will take catastrophic damage or even collapse. One problem that most people don't understand (and I don't rightly understand this either) is that the government doesn't even run on GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) the way that all the businesses traded on the stock market are, and because of that, they don't report all their liabilities the same way. If you google 'U.S. National Debt Clock', you can find the figure for 'U.S. Unfunded Liabilities', which is the difference between the net present value of expected future government spending and the net present value of projected future tax revenue, particularly those associated with Social Security and Medicare (that's from Forbes). Basically, the Feds have committed to paying $103 trillion in social Security and Medicare that they aren't going to have when the bill comes due. That's kind of a big deal. Sorry for rambling.
I love seeing educated people talk real economics in the comments as opposed to the ridiculous ego measuring arguments I see elsewhere. The guy in the video is correct on the tax plan. However, as he stated himself federal taxes are just the tip of the iceberg. And both candidates have plans to spend money on other things. My vote still stands though #Meteor2016
Hey John, I always hear Small Business owners get up in arms about Hillary, saying that she will make it hard for small business to grow, so they are going with Trump. Do we have a clear picture of how either candidate is handling Small Business? Thanks!
Well, I am a small business owner, so this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about, and I'm just not sure where the "Clinton is bad for small businesses" thing comes from. Trump's original tax plan would've been EXTREMELY friendly to small businesses (it basically would've allowed me to have a tax rate of 15% on my business's profit), but that proposal seems to have been abandoned. (There is some talk that it might come back.) The only part of Clinton's tax policy that might not be small business friendly is the adjustment to the estate tax: If you are (or were until someone died) married, your estate tax exemption would go from $11,000,000 to $7,000,000. So if the business's assets lest liabilities are over $7m, that would be taxed at I think 45%. (i.e., if your company was worth $10,000,000, the people who inherited it from you would pay $1.35m in estate taxes--probably over a 10-year period.) But I also feel like if your business is worth >7m, you are not really a SMALL business as such. -John
What about the out of control spending on a yearly basis by our Government? I mean, it was $3,900,000,000,000 this year. And no signs of it slowing whatsoever. 2,100,000,000,000 of that money goes to entitlements. You know, welfare(in its many and various forms), Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP ect. So the real question should be, how does this stop? How do so many people of the country stop being enslaved and dependant to the state?
And who causes there not to be a livable wage, government? See high taxation, cost of production, benefits, inflation, insane regulations, all contribute to low wages and all of those are the fault of government policies not the corporations.
I disagree. I see the profits going to the higher ups and split among shareholders, and corporations don't want to pay a livable wage to take a cut out of that. They still find can get poor bastards to work for them because corporations rely on social systems, the standard of living is down, they outsource skilled positions and will only hire part time for low skill positions, and politicians (BOTH conservative and democrat) continue to excuse, justify, and legalize it because our politicians ARE THE CORPORATIONS. And we regulate and tax these assholes so they can't continue to exploit and poison our water, resources, and CHILDREN and pass the buck onto US!
Donbd83 My family owns a small business as well. I understand the difficulties and how hard it can be to pay your bills and employees. Personally, I feel a problem with the big banks and corporations is all of the bailouts, tax cuts, and other measures that defy a market economy. If these institutions can't deliver a marketable product or service without going under, then they must fail and allow the market to fill the void. These protectionism's should be given to newly formed small businesses with little capital and finances. I know that not every business can succeed, but it would be nice.
Donbd83 We agree much more than we disagree. My only disagreement is that Trump is either successful at what he does, that his (lacking) skills are applicable as president, that he even really understands politics, and that he would do good for ALL the people of the United States. Whether he'd benefit the white middle class (like myself) or not, I believe Trump would violate human rights and I will not support him in anyway. I will not support Clinton either because she's a liar and corrupt, everything that is currently wrong with the system. I believed in Bernie, and I think Trump gets his support sort of in the same fashion from conservatives. He isn't perfect, but he's genuine and it's a change. I'll be voting third party basically as an act of defiance to both candidates.
Can you do a video on Clinton's estate tax. I've read some articles and seen the numbers but I don't really know how the different brackets translate into real life. Does the average family business reach that size or no?
How come you never mentioned the $10 trillion Obama added to the national debt? You act like $2 trillion is doomsday, but Obama's $10 trillion is no biggie, right?
Faceless Man Because Obama isn't running and the "10 trillion" wasn't from taxes. It all started with Bush's wars which continually added to it along with the recession he had to deal with that also was from Bush. Once you take out those two as well all other non-tax issues, it's a much smaller number.
Rollin Kocher You leftist morons have no defense of Obama other than to cry BUSH! I wonder if you actually believe that, or if you're just THAT desperate to defend a failed administration. I know you liberals have short term memories, but let me remind you. When Obama was running as President he talked a lot about expensive social policies and bailouts (including his $800 billion to Wall Street). Many reported asked him "How will you pay for all of that." He said "I'll end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and use that money to pay for this stuff." And the libiots believed him - I bet you believed him as well. Well he ended those wars and started other wars, then started ANOTHER war in Iraq with ISIS. And still managed to drive the debt up to $20 trillion dollars (Up from 10). Obama was a failure, you can't blame Bush for that.
Its called math and economy dude. If you continually lose money and then a president comes in, the money won't just halt it's speed going into the negatives. It will continue to fall from the main issue. Well it took a long time and a lot of money to fix it.
You missed something crucial about Trump's plan. He also proposes significant tariffs on imports from countries with whom he have large trade deficits, such as China. How much revenue would that raise? Not only that, but if they have the intended effect of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, those factories would then pay the corporate tax, plus the employees would be paying taxes. That would increase revenue.
Raising tariffs on china would be unprecedented. China will almost certainly raise tariffs on our goods causing a massive recession between the two of us. Almost certainly a global depression if we raised tariffs on other nations with whom we have large trade deficits. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.There is almost always gonna be place that has lower costs to manufacturer goods than us, and while manufacturing might bring a few jobs back, the cost to buy goods would skyrocket.
Not as much as you think. We can already buy clothing Made in the USA for reasonable prices at places like American Apparel. The difference is you don't have as big of a profit for the CEOs, or as much for stock investors. Just better paid workers.
Imperator, I'm actually publishing an article this Sunday explaining the details, but I ran some projections, and Trump's tariffs, using the same methodology used by the Tax Policy Center, would reduce that $6.2 trillion to $2.73 trillion. And I only considered his proposed tariffs for China, Mexico, and Japan.
im registered to vote my first election eligible to vote is a presidential election which is exciting until i think of the two major candidates and how niether of them represent my ideas and I live in ohio a major swing state meaning i am basically required to vote for a candidate whom i do not like simply in an attempt to prevent a candidate i like less from getting Ohio's electoral college votes voting on principal is not a particularly good idea for me
I think it is very brave to go voting even if you feel you are not getting the choice you wanted. Also, by watching this video you show that you have made an effort to make an informed decision :) Tbh, as a Dutch person I don't know a lot about US politics, but as I can see it from here, you really should pay close attention to the next elections for your state, as this is where most of the progress in the US is made these days. Other than that, I sincerely hope for all 300 and something million of you that one day, Congress will do its job again. Cheers
Nolan Leonard that would be a strong argument if i wasnt an mechanical engineering student with a minor in alternative energy and is very concerned about climate change i want to see fossil fuels abandoned as soon as possible trump thinks climate change is a hoax
Yep just spend $1.1 trillion on military.. What an utter waste of money and energy that would be, cut military spending by half and giving that $800 billion to NASA
God... Condescending Hillary supporters are worse than aggressive trump supporters. "Vote for Hillary Clinton" how about you not tell people what to do? Believe it or not you aren't helping anyone by treating people like sheep.
Corporate taxes are pretty simple. Trump cuts top rate from 40 to 15. Clinton offers a bunch of discounts for small biz, and startups. Not clear which is better (unlike with the income tax plans). The corporate income tax is widely regarded as too high. And 25% or so would be internationally competitive. Going past that has little benefit though.
It has much benefit to lower it as compared to existing countries it is why our companies fled to China and Mexico in the first place lower taxes, less tax equates to more profit, the bottom line which corporations care deeply about.
not really, many companies are still headquartered in america and still pay that corporate tax corporations love that near zero labour cost though, and alot of raw materials is cheaper outside too
As a former economist I want to thank you for the concise, comprehensive and fair way you presented the proposals. I would only quibble with taking the conservative Tax Foundation's Laffer curve type arguments. The empirical evidence just does not show a high correlation between low taxes and higher growth. States with higher taxes (e.g. California, New York) tend to have higher growth than states with lower taxes. A better correlation of growth is educational attainment with higher attainment correlated to higher growth.
Language has a bias unless you are the rare Lojban speaker. Bias is one of those words that people throw around, but I don't think they know how it actually affects them. Excessive bias is what your thinking about. You have to accept bias, because normal bias is a linguistic trait that contains meaning important to the subject. If you ignore bias, you don't truly understand the point of the subject as a receiver of information.
You overvalue the benefit of federal revenue, if there is more growth and more wealth in the country, there won't be as much need for government welfare plans. Also, Hillary's plan is basically to do nothing at all while Trump wants to change things, there is no way to predict the future but you can always fear monger over change compared to the status quo, even when the status quo isn't good enough
Jeremy Bennett "change things" like what? Also, that only happens if the lower wage owners get a wage increase that stays with inflation, and productivity growth. Which is absolutely not what Donald Trump, Republicans, or many Democrats want.
Jeremy Bennett Not here to argue with anyone because I don't have hours and hours to research the exact numbers on growth, etc. But I believe that under Trumps plan, you can't compare current statistics with his potential statistics. What I mean is that there will be many new laws and trade deals under trump. Meaning that if the us gdp goes up, people's wages won't stagnate. That means less entitlement programs and a larger work force. If we get rid of most of the trade deals that cost us money and create new tariffs, etc, I think the actual well being and income of us citizens will be better. I think it's possible to slowly reduce the deficit as well. However I don't think that trump is going to get elected and then magically the deficit starts going down immediately, it will take time. What I would really like to see in government is instead of regulating big businesses, let's try reducing the power of the federal government so that the politicians will not be able to take money from billionaires to pass bs laws that make it easier for them to stay in business. (Just my thoughts)
Jackson Mcgrady Totally agree with you man. Clinton represents the class that is trying to do this which is why I support Trump. The richest billionaires like Soros want to stop him so that they can rig society so that they will be able to stay in business and profit forever no matter what they do while everyone else gets poorer.
why does he talk about federal revenues going down like its a bad thing? aren't we pissed that the government continually wastes/"loses" money all the time?
When those drops in revenue are not coupled with a decrease in spending, yes, that is a bad thing. That means the national deficit increases, raising the likelihood of our national debt becoming more than we can pay. That's a problem that's probably still years away, but if we don't start addressing that deficit, it will become a problem, and we will enter into the debt spiral John talked about.
kerchew Not to mention he wants to increase military spending...How do you expect to increase what the government does while also cutting the revenue it receives WHEN IT ALREADY HAS A DEFICIT
![ละลาย (LALALYE) - DAOU PITTAYA ต้าห์อู๋ พิทยา [OFFICIAL MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/wo6r9TgausI/mqdefault.jpg)
trump has a plan?
Lol right??
Haha
no, he changes his mind each week
Tune in next week to see how he changes his policies
no, he changes his mind each week
Tune in next week to see how he changes his policies
Like a dog chasing a car.
I can't believe I just spent 10 minutes watching a video about the tax policies of two candidates, in a country which I do not live....
TheBetterGame Same, but for me, I enjoy their debates whichh I loveee to see the results.
Also, I'm studying BA, tho, this is an assignment for us students.
You should move here. We need informed peps :)
Don't want to be rude but not for all the money of the world I would move to the US. A country this divided, with no healthcare system and that much guns/gun violence sounds not like a great place to live.
Though you have many beautiful landscapes in your country and I bet more than half of the people living there are very decent.
TheBetterGame lol!!! You are the lucky one. You don't have to vote tomorrow!
TheBetterGame
I just did the same thing😂😂😂😂
Our tax rate for minimum persons earning a salary under paye is 40%😅
Every time John talks about politics,,, he puts on a suit !!!
It's a little inside joke for nerdfighteria :) -John
Absolutely brilliant. You have to love when some smart soul goes and does all our homework for us. Informative and succinct. Thanks John!
Glad you enjoyed! -John
i agree with manatee man, most Americans don't have the education or time ( or both) to stop and research about government policies. Your channel is a great resource for those who want to learn about politics without the scary wall of complicated terminology and big words.
+Thien Nguyen And most important(for me at least)is almost no political bias. I never stop hearing from Republican talk shows about how Democrats are less than human. And is it too much to ask of Democrats to not punish big business just because they are successful. We have almost 20 trillion dollars of debt(at the time of this post), if we as Americans are going to tackle it, it will take all of us, and paying off debt ALWAYS hurts while you are doing it but we can do it.
This comment section is the reason I love Nerdfighteria. Most people are open for discussions, asking the important and interesting questions and if they are not they are at least appreciating a quality video packed full with information. This comment section restores my hope in humanity every time :) Have a nice day everybody.
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Really though, so true
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This may get buried, but I wanted to say this is an awesome video! I mentioned after the last tax video that it seemed partisan and so wasn't strictly educational, but this one had a really cool, clear line between the strictly factual (and multi-perspective) portion and the slightly more op ed about why a deficit is a bad thing.
I doubt it was my input that made this happen, but I'm really happy with the change. Keep making great stuff!
The input is appreciated, and so are the kind words. I think it's very hard to make a video like this without sounding partisan, but I tried to be conscious of my biases and counter them in my thinking and sources insofar as possible. (But I also didn't want to create a false equivalence!) -John
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I will admit I did not understand all of this but what I did greatly increased my understanding on the candidates tax plans. Numbers quickly overwhelm me so I admit I had not made much of an attempt to learn about this but I am glad to have it explained to me. Thank you for this John.
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Unfortunately, neither candidate wants to abolish the penny...
Yes. Also, have the IRS do our taxes, they can basically do that now.
Great analysis, John :) as an Argentine I wish y'all the best of lucks, no matter who ends up becoming president
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Argentino aca también, de Córdoba
Good luck y'all Americans
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Thanks. We're going to need it.
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This is such a great non-partisan video on taxes! thanks John!
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Thanks! :) -John
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Thanks! That was very useful. I also appreciate the fact-based, non-vitriolic delivery.
Your channel is an asset to humanity ;)
There should be more videos like this so I can actually know what both candidates plans are, because during the debate you learn nothing but who can come up with witty zinger
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To be fair, there is much information available on the candidates' websites alone that goes far beyond what's covered in the debates. That doesn't excuse the debates being ridiculous corporate propaganda fests of disinformation, but you *can* know these things, and one could make the argument that one should actively seek information. After all, opinions shaped from passively received information are low hanging fruit for those who would engineer the flows of information to certain demographics.
+ThePatriotMuckraker Hillary is accused too and she just stop with the propaganda in the debates.....but trump doesn't let it go sooo...yeah....the media plays a big part but we got to be honest hillary is being attack too yet she finds a way to stop those rumors out of the debate something that donlad finds hard to do
Adrian Gonzalez I normally pay no attention to this sort of thing. But because elections are tomorrow , and this is my first election I can vote in I want to be absolutely sure . Rn I'm thinking libertarian just to wash my hands of this mess. So far. But yeah.
@@Ginupseed
Who did you end up voting for?
This video just convinced me to vote for Hillary Clinton.
who were you going to vote fro before this video?
weesh ful Trump.
I'm voting for her too.
No it didn't. Thanks for #CorrectingTheRecord
With a name like Ortiz, you didn't have to tell me.
Very good and informative video.
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Man, this is a really TAXING conversation.
I'll leave now.
th-cam.com/video/LekUKeFijxc/w-d-xo.html
If you really are a fiscal conservative and care about the debt, voting for Trump is voting for complete fiscal irresponsibility and crippling deficits much like the Bush tax cuts.
Trump never makes policy prescriptions. He sets bargaining positions.
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Everyday I'm happy to be Canadian
Next to Trump, Harper doesn't look quite so bad, and Trudeau appears positively brilliant!
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Yes, but us Canadians are deeply linked to America's state of affairs. If the US collaspses it'd be bad for us too (although not as bad as they got it).
Some responses to your comments! (Click read more to expand this comment.)
1. Why didn't you talk about Gary Johnson or Jill Stein's tax proposals? Partly because neither of them is going to be the next President, and partly because neither has released a detailed-enough proposal to compare it to the Clinton and Trump plans, which are (if nothing else) detailed and robust.
2. @Slidtax explains below that debt to GDP ratio is not always a good guide of when public debt gets expensive: Japan has had a very high debt to GDP ratio for a long time, for instance.
3. A few of you have asked if candidates ever keep their promises. Surprisingly, they mostly do: fivethirtyeight.com/features/trust-us-politicians-keep-most-of-their-promises/
4. A few people have asked me for an example of the kind of serious and thoughtful Republican budget proposals I mention in the video. The Paul Ryan-led Republican Congressional proposal is one, which you can read about here: taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-2016-house-republican-tax-reform-plan It certainly isn't revenue-neutral, and you may not LIKE the proposals set forth by it, but they are serious and careful.
5. Many of you have asked about Clinton's estate tax proposal: Currently, if you are married (or were when one spouse died), the estate tax exemption is $11,000,000, and the estate tax is 40%--so if your business or estate is worth, say, $12,000,000, your beneficiaries would pay $400,000 in estate taxes when you die and they inherit your business/assets/whatever. (This $400,000 would likely be paid over 10 years, or possibly more, as I understand it.) Clinton would lower the exemption to $7,000,000, and the estate tax would be 45%. So the same hypothetical business would pay $2,250,000 in estate taxes (probably over 10 years). Whether or not a business with $7,000,000 in assets and $0 in liabilities is a "small business" depends on your definition of small, I guess, but that's the proposal.
I'll edit this response to include more answers to any questions you might have; just reply here. Thanks! -John
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Do you happen to know what kind of accountability there is for presidential nominees to follow through with the parameters of the tax changes they propose before they are elected? For example, if Hilary gets elected, she can't suddenly change her tax plans dramatically to benefit the wealthy? Or if Trump gets elected, and he sees how devastating his plan will be in the long term GDP debt, can he make changes so that the damage isn't so steep?
well said since the Republican and Democratic party has too much power and leave third party too small to rise up and leave it more Democratic process and society
vlogbrothers Did you get any fishing boat proceeds this year?
He covers fiscal expenditure in this video...
This is the best breakdown of both tax proposals I've seen that presents it in an easy to understand way.
Being poor is WAY WAY WAY WAY worse than being over taxed. The reason you may not know this is bc you've never been poor. Or don't know anyone who is. Not having a doctor and not having a second jet ski are different things.
somebody's never been on welfare
and you had the money to go to college?
I think it's better if some people are helped and some aren't, than if nobody is helped. Innocent until proven guilty, right? I'd rather help a mix of innocent and guilty than not help any of the innocents just bc of the guilty.
I think the fundamental difference here is that I'd be okay with helping some assholes if it meant helping some good people too, and you wouldn't. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just that it's the kind of thing you can't change your mind on.
*edit for grammar
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Thanks for mentioning the bit about the debt spiral. I'm here at the LSE and it's difficult for my fellow Americans (who are not also studying European politics) to understand the concern about sovereign debt, not just here but in the rest of the world. It's definitely something we don't get educated on and even though I predict that the next debt crisis will be similar to the last (not like Greece, but more like a Spain or Ireland - private debt being assumed by public institutions inadequate to handle it) it's important that people know the general outline of what it looks like and why they should be wary. As always, the video was pithy and (I think) intelligible to those outside the field. Kudos!
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everyone likes to wag their finger at Greece, but they weren't able to print their own money to invest in the country and pull themselves out of the spiral. It's a completely different scenario and literally would literally never happen in the US
Devaluing currency wouldn't actually change the amount of real debt held. If anything, it would further shake faith in our economy and make new debt (for new investment to try and pull us out of the hole) more expensive. Greece is probably the one genuine case of a sovereign debt spiral within the EU and yeah, they were in a difficult spot as countries in the Eurozone can set their own social policy, but not monetary policy. In a similar situation, the US could do more to mitigate the damage, but the damage would still be there. And anyway, my nightmare scenario is much more about the "fake sovereign debt" or "publicly assumed private debt" scenario happening again, and being more than our overall GDP.
Jacqueline Noël Manuel I think you misunderstood my comment. You can't print money to get yourself out of a debt spiral but you can print money to invest in infrastructure which (as history is shown) is the only reliable way of getting yourself out of a debt spiral.
I don't see why politicians are the ones that decides what to pay in taxes. Why not use mathematicians to find the optimal taxing for given conditions.
makes sense
Because the math isn't the hard part; the hard part is deciding what to optimize for.
Define "optimal." Do you want to maximize federal revenue, or minimize taxation? What is their relative importance?
surely it would be economists and statisticians and not mathematicians? mathematicians have no formal training in economics
Árni we do already lolll
You guys are amazing.....I posted this to facebook and G+. You explain every issue in 10 minutes, where the parties seem to leave nothing explained - Thank you
2016: When YA fiction authors and youtubers explain party tax plans better than the presidential candidates themselves.
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I'm not sure if you've already made a video on this issue, but I would love if you guys made a video talking about the North Dakota Pipeline. It's an issue that's incredibly important to me that I'm trying to bring attention to, and I feel like you two would be able to inform people about it well.
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Especially since John's friend Shailene Woodley was recently arrested for protesting it!
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wait 50% of people dont pay anything but rich are those who dont pay fair share?
Tomáš Viktorin well someone can work two minimum wage jobs and hardly pay for necessaries while working extremely hard while someone with a much higher paying job can work just as hard but would have more vacations, more money, much better working environment and mental health and so would be in a much better position to pay higher taxes.
"Fair share" doesn't mean "some set amount that's the same for everyone". It means "the amount they can afford to pay without causing themselves economic distress". If someone works several jobs and can barely afford to feed and shelter their family, their fair share is much less than that of someone who makes millions of dollars each year (assuming, as I believe it can be assumed, that food and shelter cost the same, on average, for everyone in the country).
malbolt So you are saying that till these two jobs feel the same (have same benefit to worker) the better should be taxed to the point of eqalibrium? Thats what it looks like from what you wrote. He has more time free tax him more he has better enviroment tax him more. he has bigger income and pays bigger taxes baseline tax him more.
Tomáš Viktorin I said "economic distress", not "sadness".
Tomáš Viktorin
Fine, let's go with one of the least expensive places to live in the US: Harlingen, TX. The cost of living there is about $23,222/year. Full-time at $5/hr is still less than half that amount as well.
Thanks for supporting my lack of a car, but I don't do it for the environment. I do it because, even though I'm employed and making more than minimum wage, I still can't afford a car. And I'm not happy about that; it severely limits my job prospects because public transportation isn't adequate for a daily commute unless you live in an urban city, which I don't.
Flat tax rates would NOT be the fairest way in principle. Fair is about comparing what you pay to what you can afford to pay, not comparing it to what other people pay. And you cannot compare a percentage of one value directly to a percentage of a different value--that's just bad math. The rich do not pay their fair share because they can afford to pay far more than they do compared to the poor who can't.
Anyone who got all of this in one take without pausing, god bless you
I know right still a long way to learn.
So tl;dr: Clinton focuses on individuals, Trump focuses on corporations.
Well, for the republicans, they are both the same.
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Trump focuses on corporations.. which is why his tax plan lowers taxes for ALL people, as shown in the video. All right. Classic rhetoric.
Hillary focuses on George Soros, do your own research for Godsake's!!!
TL dr Hillary's plan doesn't change much, and Trump's plan is not real because he doesn't understand how the system works. Trump will just be Pence puppet in the end.
Yesss!!! I feel like I've been looking forward to this video for a while 😊
Good birthday present (I turned 19 today)
OnceUponAPiano Happy 19th!!
Frankly, I could imagine a better birthday present than a video on tax policy, but to each their own. Happy birthday anyway!
reckonerwheel Thanks!!!
Ken Bone 2016!
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There need to be more videos like this for the public, because 80% of the debates just consist of them insulting each other personally and not talking about anything significant.
I like that most of John's political videos are "Here's an educated reason why X is probably better than Y, but neither X nor Y will be the supposed end of all creation that many claim."
Yeah, pretty much. I think the polarized political debate in the U.S. leads to a lot of "THE APOCALYPSE IS COMING." And that's probably not true. But a debt spiral really would be catastrophic to the U.S. for a generation, and it's something I felt like I had to acknowledge given how extreme the shortfall is in the Trump plan. -John
So how about the US spends less on war and more on debt and healthcare?
You could pay significantly less on healthcare if you switched up your system. John & Hank's Healthcare Triage channel has a great run down of some popular systems worldwide (E.g. Canada, France, Germany, Singapore, the UK, etc) that provide better coverage at a lower cost to both patients and the government.
Spending more on health care is a bad call, we should spend less and be smarter about health care
I'd love for it to happen, but it never will. Reducing defense spending is a political third rail here in the US.
Because defense is important and social handouts are not.
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John Green: Trump will cause the apocalypse
Trump Supporters: Still gonna vote for him
Holy crap, I found you on a two year old video comment section!!! Death to moderately radical centrists
I'm from future, and you know whats happening if you're not dead
Thank you for making videos like these! It is so great to hear complicated issues discussed in ways that are easy to understand.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I feel so ill-equipped to vote in the upcoming election and it is absolutely nerve-wracking. Also, John, I am having difficulty imagining Trump complexly. ^-^
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Yeah the fear mongering make's you think trump doesn't even have a tax plan.
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I absolutely love when you make these kinds of policy videos! I'm a policy and politics geek, and am unfortunately aware - through countless conversations - that many of my fellow younger Millennials don't really know how or where to find information about either candidates' policies.
According to Pew, Millennials recently outstripped Baby Boomers as America's largest living generation (pewrsr.ch/1TjzRYp), so I am most excited that these videos might be able to reach younger members of my generation.
So, thank you so, so much for videos like these and please do more of them!
I'm not exaggerating when I say that these videos - with the potential to activate and inspire millions of young people and get them to start engaging in the process -are a great service to the future of civic engagement in this country.
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Only Trump's tax plan is available to the public. Clinton has a public policy and a private one. That and Clinton is corrupt so you are either accepting what Trump has to offer with the knowledge that Trump will face heavy resistance from congress or voting for corruption.
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totally unrelated to the topic of the vid but where is this weeks dear hank and john? I need that wonderful dubious advice you provide
they did say there wouldn't be one, sadly
Oh I completely forgot that there would't be one today! I have been checking for a new one all day!
Just want to give you guys some credit for this very detailed explanation and comparison to each candidates tax plan. It was excellent!
Dear Northern Americans, (yes including Canada and especially Mexico)
I wish you all the best of luck for the coming years. They might be tough. Especially if you live in the USA.
But keep going! To me, you are worth more alive than dead. Or broke.
So with the best of luck from europe,
Go out and VOTE! (if you can)
will struggle but I hope we remain strong
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Thank you friend
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First off, thanks for the analysis! A two quick questions for you!
1. Going off of usdebtclock, our national debt is 106% (19.6/18.5) of our GDP. Why is this number not used instead of the 76% you used?
2. Another big part of federal spending is healthcare. Working in the industry, I see money being hemorrhaged every day out of government accounts, often not helping the intended patients. Can you outline how the two candidates intend to reform healthcare costs, and how this will change spending?
In the video he was talking about public debt, not overall debt. It's more significant because our ability to pay off those public debts are what keeps those interest rates so low. If our public held debts were higher than our gdp then the interest rates would increase.
I'm also curious about this. He references a scary 100-110 range, but my understanding was always that this range generally concerned overall debt-to-GDP ratio and that economists are already very nervous about this. (If anything, this reinforces John's point, but I don't understand why he's using the numbers he's using)
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you people seem to forget the fact that what is gained debt wise from income tax revenue would be counterbalanced by better foreign trade deals. Now, before you people get up in arms about how countries "wont buy in" on his policies, you have to remember: we are America. America is the WORLDS LARGEST CONSUMER. We have the worlds largest import rates and a lot of countries economies RELY on us to continue purchasing their exports. If we were to use that to our advantage we would see ASTRONOMICAL economic growth because right now we are just letting other countries basically run all over us in that department. Let us not forget that we are a Capitalistic Republic, and our country runs (in its most basic state) like a business, something Trump knows how to run. So I believe that with his foreign policies we would see economic growth the likes we haven't seen in decades. Now, there is always a chance that nobody will buy into his policies and go elsewhere for trade. However, that is ALWAYS a possibility. This video's numbers are just on INCOME TAX plans, not FULL ECONOMIC plans, so to say "He WILL raise the nation debt by X amount!" is actually kind of intellectually dishonest because this is just one portion of the economy.
And Hillary's plans, from what I've seen, is just a continuation of what we have today, which is stagnation at this point. Her plan changes little to nothing economically from what I've seen. I'm sure the difference was lost in an email or something
Honestly Trump refuses to release tax returns. You're just 'assuming' that he's a good business man.
And it's 100% clear that if Trump's plan doesn't 1. rustle up foreign trade or 2. get people to continue business within US then he's going to effectively cripple US much further than any other president has before.
The question asked by this video and by every sensible person is why leave this gamble to someone that clearly isn't completely forthright with his own income (I mean listen to the debates, he's clearly hiding things about his wealth), also clearly someone abandoned by all parties?
I feel that this election is comparable to Brexit in that people are just voting for Trump as a proxy for 'major changes that MIGHT help', while not fully realizing the implications of such a vote.
So what? No matter how good a trade deal is, the US government would see so little of that money (as he explained in the video). Yes, people will have more money (a little more, unless you're already rich). But the government would have to run a huge deficit.
+Naturalrice Why would the people keep voting for something that isn't working? We know Hillary cant be trusted, and it's certain she will either keep the economy constant or worsen it. Trump, who has turned millions into billions, has a history of success. Hillary has a history of failure and lies. The reason the Republicans and democrats don't like Trump is because he wont do what either says just for the party to gain power. He actually wants to help Americans. Hillary is just a political puppet. How long has Hillary been involved in government? And how much good has she done for the country? America needs to be our first priority. Trump will put America first, unlike Obama has and unlike Clinton would. All of this, and a lot of people are pissed off that she slid out of being prosecuted by the FBI when she has clearly committed the act and attempted a cover-up.
Obama and Bush were both awful. A Republican and a Democrat. If both parties cant fix things, why do we need to keep listening to them?
pistolshooter1029
That's why people are voting for the independent, Donald Trump!
I literally gasped when he said "Greece"
I saw that coming.
You're a great man, John Green. Thanks for this!
There is no rational reason to support Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
Edit: I need to go to bed. I typed the wrong candidate in my original post. God I need sleep.
There are plenty of reasons.
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/09/progressive-case-hillary-clinton-overwhelming
There is one reason to support her, it's Trump.
There are many many reason to vote for someone other than Hillary. Trump is very far from a good candidate, however Hillary is proven herself to be everything but honest, trustworthy, and has a horrible track record for supporting horrible foreign policies and American legislation.
Yes Hillary is not perfect but her record is relatively good for the long time she has been in office.
There is no rational reason to support Donald Trump OR Hillary Clinton. Gary Johnson 2016!
Best explanation ever. Makes it totally clear.
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Greg Wiens +
The point is, I dont want the goverment to lower taxes I want it to lower spending
So you are kind of stuck. BTW, govt spending pays for things...
xavier ortiz Lower both
Yeah, everything fits into your little dichotomy
The only social program big enough big enough where lowering spending would be possible is Social Security, and I doubt you want to see more homeless seniors.
then let them work for at least two more years, they retire at 65 and stay in that system until 83 min. so you have 15 years of support to that person, the system was made to support people of almost 50 years ago that lived until 63 so it was a mirracle that a person could get the first paiment.
Awesome video guys! And as always, thanks for being so interactive with your viewers! We need more TH-camrs like that.
*You presented objective facts.*
Conservatives: DAMN LIBERAL BIAS!!!!!
Mocking people is exactly the opposite of the point in this video. He wants it to be open to everyone so more people can be educated on the subject
More like Clinton is corrupt so her tax plans aren't worth looking at, because she is going to make sure the bankers keep making bank.
Conservatives/libertarians are mainly criticising Johns keynesian fallacies toward tge end of the video.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
Well there's definitely a leaning in this video if you understand the basics of what conservatives believe. He was heavily negative about the government not getting more tax revenue, but conservatives are anti-big gov't. So to a conservative the government having less money/ power, and cutting down on public agencies are a plus.
Please do my taxes. I don't understand taxes.
Specifically, how to file them. Which is why I pay an accountant.
Ellellevlog I just ignore them and hope they'll go away.
You honestly don't need an accountant or CPA unless you run a small business. Everything is pretty step by step and even the IRS made it really easy by integrating the Turbo Tax system.
For a long time I went to a big accounting company for my taxes but then I borrowed a friends TurboTax and went back and "double checked" my accountants numbers- within about 20 dollars for the 4 years I checked. Since then I just buy the online program. My taxes aren't too complicated, but I have uniforms, equipment and mileage/ car depreciation that I write off.
Oh no! Buy the software! It's so cheap, and it's really not as intimidating as it sounds.
That moment when you realize that the half of Americans who pay no taxes at all are the ones consistently accusing the other half of not paying "their fair share". Also, $2 Trillion added to the national debt over 10 years is pocket change compared to the $11 Trillion Obama added over 8 years. Sure, I'd rather not add more to the debt, but I don't want anyone's taxes to go up either. Washington doesn't have a revenue problem, they have a spending problem; giving them more money will only exacerbate their addiction.
The budget was balanced and generating surplus under Clinton, until the George W Bush administration nonsensical tax plans and foreign adventuring. It is the height of hypocrisy to blame Obama if you know, or complete idiocy if you don't know that simple fact.
TOM P Ah! The myth of Clinton's balanced budget. Yeah, that's what it looks like when you only look at public debt, but when you also look at intragovernment debt, then the picture looks a whole lot different. The U.S overall debt hasn't gone down by a penny in decades. Educate yourself about how government debt actually works, and then come back to me about the Clinton surplus myth.
***** Oh I'm sorry. I had no idea that the half that pays income taxes, were exempt from sales and payroll taxes. My bad. lol
You can see here how it slows down/goes down halfway through the 90s (Clinton era) and the first years of Bush (before the tax cuts):
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/USDebt.png
Then it rises dramatically during the great recession.
A few things:
- The Obama Administration didn't add $11T during their time in office. It's much closet to $7.5T. Now that's not great but, much of that was inherited from the FY09 budget built under the Bush Administration (albeit, it was a Democratic Congress).
The Washington Post did a pretty good job of looking at all the numbers and angles that the debt gets espoused. Personally, I prefer to look at the debt increased by percentage, which would put the Obama Administration behind the Reagan Administration and the Bush II Administration and just ahead of the Bush I Administration (this goes back for 50 years):
www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/07/the-story-behind-obama-and-the-national-debt-in-7-charts/
- The $2.2T to $7.4T in increased projected debt for the Trump Administration is over and beyond what is already projected for the next 10 years. Currently the CBO projects the deficit to increase by $9.4T* over the next 10 years:
Page 5:
www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/114th-congress-2015-2016/reports/51129-2016Outlook_OneCol-2.pdf
By increasing the debt by an additional $2.2T then you're looking at a total increase of ~61.3%. However, if it goes to an additional $7.4T then you're looking at a 90% increase in the overall debt, which would outpace every administration except the Reagan Administration. Also, that's how you move from ~86% - 88% of GDP to 105% - 110% of GDP and become Greece.
*I am going by memory here so forgive me if I am off but: I believe the CBO projected a $2T surplus over 10 years during the FY02 debate for tax cuts. The tax cuts were meant to cut that to a $1T surplus. We ended up with a $9T deficit so, the CBO was off by a whopping $10T over 10 years. Not good.
THANK YOU!!!
You are the only person (not even Trump or Hillary) to break down the candidates tax plans were I could understand it.
I'm gonna be completely honest: Their tax policies are the thing I'm least concerned about when it comes to making a decision on who to vote for. I'm significantly more interested in their positions on social issues because I can not, in good consciousness, vote for anyone who's platform is as anti-lgbtq+ and anti-women as Trump's is.
Kaija Schmauss you should be voting stein then because Hillary likes to bomb innocent people in other countries
nice b8 m8
That's less of an issue for the executive and more for the legislature and the judiciary (i.e. Congress, Senate and the Courts).
Neither major Presidential candidate is going to be able to do much to change peoples' rights.
For many of the LGBT and Women's rights issues, it is actually your states and not the federal government which is the source of progress/conservatism.
8/8
Well, to be quite frank then, you're voting for the wrong reasons. The President doesn't have much say in what social policies are enacted other than veto power over bills coming up from Congress that can be overridden if the situation allows it. A President holds more sway over economic projections of the United States than social projections, and even then, that's not saying a whole lot because, as mentioned prior, the bills come up from Congress.
This video needs a 2019 follow-up response video
Im so happy to live in Canada
If your neighbour's house burns down... your house is in danger too.
I'm Canadian too, hope you had a good Thanksgiving this weekend.
please let me join you. your government seems amazing!
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Julia Caplan I believe Alberta's in the grips of a serious recession and your economic growth is way down from just a few years ago. Sure we have silly national politics here in the US but we still beat Canada on a number of very significant positive and normative quality of life measures. True you may have better social programs but I wouldn't be so quick to judge US.
this 10 minute video is better than all the debates combined.
I don't get it. People keep telling me that Trumps a business man. That's supposed to be his big selling point. I'm starting to think Donald Trump might be incompetent.
Well, he's a good businessman, but he's incompetent in many things.
Simple. we are 1% growth. We need to be at 4 to 7% Its all about Jobs. This video is lacking.
He is a good Business man. Vlogbrothers stated that debt has never been cheaper so why not use that leverage to grow the economy.
+Chris Wallace - If Trump would release his tax returns, we would have a better idea of how good a businessman he really is. Accrding to him, his strength is his business acumen, yet he expects us to just take his word for it.
Running a business and understanding business deals is drastically different than managing national trade deals and balancing a budget
I was really interested but I couldn't follow
a little biased don't you think
Not when fact checked against a non partisan conservative leaning website. Can we stop just throwing the word biased around. Facts have a bias called right and wrong, there is no netural.
Golden2962 I didn't know that actual facts were biased.
no i believe that the video was very well done in that regard i was referring to the DarkwingDuck's comment
+Stephanie Palacios
Facts are never biased. It's interpreting and presenting facts that become bias. And that's where the wall of accepting biased views crash down
Let's be honest here. Taxation isn't a problem. Government spending is.
I would happily pay a little more in tax if it meant that a decent government was spending the money wisely.
Joe Smith so what spending would you cut?
military spending
I agree, I would happily pay more taxes if the money went to say, education, rather than the ridiculous amounts we spend on the military per year. We constantly complain that we're behind other countries in education, but we do practically nothing to improve it.
precisely, and that would be the cost of having a truly great nation. something you (i'm from Britain) can all be proud of, and a good future to look forward to.
The general belief that "taxation is theft" and that people want to pay as little tax as possible, but also have free healthcare and get their potholes fixed asap is just plain rotten - dare I say even arrogant and entitled. These things must be paid for somehow - and the government doesn't make money, it only spends.
Actually nice to see a pretty neutral guy , no bais , just stating facts and explains the tax plans very well . Gonna drop a sub
Trump's tax plan in a nutshell: I don't want to pay taxes.
Hillary's plan: Give the government your money, because they know how to handle it better than you!
Jonathan Luoto Who does? Taxation is theft
Hrishikesh Krishnakumar I've seen this phrase a lot lately, could you please explain what do you mean?
I see taxes as basically rent paid to the government for the basic services given. the amount of taxes any person payes is not constant because if you demand the same amount from everyone, you either get very little services (for an amount that everyone can pay) or you make a large part of the population criminals.
It's theft because you did not consent to the exchange of your money for the "services" the government provides. Also taxing everyone the same amount is still theft. And you don't make anyone a criminal, criminals choose to become a criminal themselves.
+Faceless Man She don't need your money man, she gets enough from Saudi Arabia.
Needed something to fall asleep to. Figured this would do it
As a Greek, I 'm just glad to hear my country being mentioned!
You John Green are that teacher who can take any difficult subject or complicated things and easily explain it to anybody at any age. From 5 years old to people who are well into their 60s. But this was still really hard to grasp, I got lost in areas and couldn't keep up.
Thanks for taking the time to break it down and trying to explain in laymens terms.
And it's also important to remember that VlogBrothers is notoriously liberal. Not just leaning Liberal, I mean full on Liberal and incredibly biased against Trump.
And yet everything he said here was accurate, factual, and backed up with citations, so which candidate he likes doesn't change anything in this video.
I feel he was being quite conservative in this video, but that might be due to my point of view. Seeing John pointing out that a lot of people do not actually pay taxes was painful, as it is a classic conservative argument for lowering taxes on the rich.
Nol van Gerven
If it is, it's a flawed one, as comparing a percentage of one value directly to a percentage of another value is just bad math.
It is :) But unfortunately a lot of people do not see that.
So numbers you can fact check against a conservative non-partisan research group don't matter at all, did you even watch the video? And is it really surprising that John and Hank Green who have a very young fan base don't support someone who has publically made crude remarks about women, a disabled reporter, veterans, latinos, blacks? You don't have to be liberal to be against someone like that. A lot of conservatives (Actual conservatives are), libertarians and moderates too. And why do we throw around the word bias as an insult? Why would anyone be neutral about anything important to them. I remember the Bible mentioning something about not being luke warm if you want to go there...
It frustrates me that videos like this must be made because in the debate you do not actually learn much of they're actual proposals
John, could you do an analytic video like this on the third party candidates? Just for fun?
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according to John, neither of the two major third party candidates have detailed enough tax plans to run this sort of analysis.
This is the first video I've watched of yours..... and LOVED it... Very well done!!! You are Amazing!
How can you give such a detailed and specific analysis of Trump's tax plan, when he has released/discussed multiple, conflicting versions of his tax plans throughout the campaign?
At least tell us: Which one did you pick? Where's the sauce?
EDIT: I see the links in the description. Still, I am dubious of Trump having a single unified "tax plan."
He picked the very last one, the one he talked about in the debate.
Trump's plan was about tax + taking manufacturing back to US. Hillary is about tax only and everything is the same, or worse because UsA has 500 bils US deficit with China.
Thats the only way to make USA better instead of doing nothing about business
HaHD Đặng Hồng Hà Even if you tax corporations way less (or nothing at all). That won't bring manufacturing jobs back to the US unless you also do away with minimum wage.
+I'd hit it The lower tax is the carrot, other policies will be the stick. Trump will not call industries back just by taxation. One of that is the deal with China about currency, making Yuan stronger, so the US will have more advantages. And much more policies can be implemented but the point is to have factories back.
Hillary will just do nothing. Oh maybe more about military activities which can be very pointless like Lybia, Yemen
+HaHD Đặng Hồng Hà, so how actually would get Trump the big companies back to the US? Is there any way that China will aggree on your wonderfull deal?
The problem might also be another, and that is that the big companies are too powerfull. Actually Trump would not change that to the better, but Hillary would, because she would strenghten the middle class.
For the record, I hate both Trump and Clinton. But I do have a problem when you're going to "compare" the 2 tax plans and when speaking of Clinton you use % (possibly to make it sound like a small impact) but only use large $ amounts when speaking of Trump's plan. Whether you're aware of it or not, that makes your video biased in the way information has been presented. Clearly you're voting for Clinton as you didn't even bother mentioning the other canadites. I was under the impression Vlog Brothers was neutral in polotics but information bias is everywhere it seems.
What do you mean? I said "200 billion dollars over 10 years" when talking about the Clinton tax plan's affect on the debt. Where do I talk about percentages but not real numbers? I didn't mention the other candidates because neither of them has released a comprehensive tax plan with the kind of details I'd need to compare them to the Trump and Clinton tax plans. I'm sorry you felt the video was biased. -John
You're right he did use a percentage when talking about Hillary, but he also gave approximate numbers for both too 200 billion vs. 2 trillion. No it doesn't make him biased as he presented the proposals as is, I am sorry that Trumps plan isn't as good.
I would definitely disagree with the idea that Vlog Brothers is neutral in politics, or even that they try to appear neutral most of the time. They have certainly made politically unbiased political videos (I do not count this video among them), but I think most of the time they have made their left wing bias pretty evident. Although I do consume much of their other content and it is possible I am getting my Dear Hank and John mixed up with my Vlog Brothers content.
I can agree that Mr. Trump is not the ideal candidate, but my vote goes to him because of the Supreme Court. (Literally the only reason.) Please don't assume everyone will either vote for Ms. Clinton or stay home. It feels like your ignoring the other half of the country that does not agree with you.
I think the author of this extremely inaccurate comment meant that you said the effective tax rate for the Roosevelts is going to reach 40% under Clinton's plan, but when you described Trump's plan, you used the absolute values to show that the tax cuts will yield more benefits to the rich. PS. Even hard sciences are biased because of researchers' paradigms. This effect is considerably stronger in social sciencies.
bringing back factory jobs and taxing non-us made products might be a big factor that was not discussed? informative video though!
So you're saying to raise the prices of products? Like paying 2k for a tv instead of 1k?
Everyone would have to pay much more for everything so it would be a pretty terrible inflation.
Dominick NL you're right they're an incredibly big factor but they are also a lot harder to predict the effects of. I think that's why he left them out.
Everything in this video is hard to predict. He's probably just biased.
According to the US Bureau of Labor, manufacturing output has been increasing pretty consistently since the mid '80s while manufacturing employment has consistently decreased. This isn't a big surprise though, given that advances in technology and automation are consistently helping to make factories more efficient (i.e. we don't need as many people working in factories to produce the same amount of/more goods).
See...this was so much more helpful than the non-answers I've seen in the past two debates. I know substantive answers can be confusing and a turn-off to some voters, but I wish the candidates would have enough respect for the audience to put forth the effort to answer policy questions with this level of substance. As a teacher I can guarantee that with a bit of effort it's not difficult to find a creative way to express this information in a brief, and compelling way.
I wonder, statistically, how many presidents have followed through with their tax proposals?
Or at least attempted?
Who makes the changes to the tax codes does the president actually have that power? Or are these tax plans just the ideal that the candidates are striving for?
Hooya2 thanks
+Hooya2 Although as you said, with a 2/3 vote, Congress can override any veto (something that happened quite recently, in fact), so if 2/3 of Congress already wants something to happen in the first place, it will. I'd say that makes them more powerful as a whole.
+Hooya2 Congress cannot impeach Judges, only executives.
Guys, go + crazy. This video more than other videos needs it more.
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What does commenting + do?
it games the top comments system. normally, the most controversial comments rise to the top because they get the most replies. Basically, replying with a + 20 times will help the comment rise to the top more than 20 thumbs up.
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Thank you for taking the time to make such a thoughtful and well-researched video on the topic! I so wish this was the norm and not the exception as of late.
What are we borrowing money for?
The US borrows money to pay for its own programs.
You can lend the government money (by buying a Treasury Bond) and then the government will pay you back what you gave them, plus interest
Well, that's a really interesting and complicated question. On some level, it makes *sense* to borrow money if we can borrow it at essentially a 0% interest rate. We can use that money to invest in infrastructure and people and thereby grow the economy so that we will have more money to pay off the debt in the future. But on another level, at some point we begin to put ourselves in a position where an economic downturn might turn into a debt spiral not because the economic downturn is so severe, but because our pre-existing debt was too high. I don't think we're very close to that point at the moment, but it's definitely something to be aware of. -John
***** there is an inherent assumption that our economy will grow in a fashion that will eventually pay off the interest (hopefully there is more growth than interest)
Everything, I think. Used in responsible amounts, debt can be used as leverage to create growth. That's the way most all businesses are run, and its the way that the government is supposed to be run. However, we're currently on course to increase the debt beyond what can be considered responsible, and if the U.S. turns into Greece (and defaults on those many trillions of dollars of debt) the world economy will take catastrophic damage or even collapse.
One problem that most people don't understand (and I don't rightly understand this either) is that the government doesn't even run on GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles) the way that all the businesses traded on the stock market are, and because of that, they don't report all their liabilities the same way. If you google 'U.S. National Debt Clock', you can find the figure for 'U.S. Unfunded Liabilities', which is the difference between the net present value of expected future government spending and the net present value of projected future tax revenue, particularly those associated with Social Security and Medicare (that's from Forbes). Basically, the Feds have committed to paying $103 trillion in social Security and Medicare that they aren't going to have when the bill comes due. That's kind of a big deal.
Sorry for rambling.
+iwantaredmonkey Thank you for responding.
I love seeing educated people talk real economics in the comments as opposed to the ridiculous ego measuring arguments I see elsewhere. The guy in the video is correct on the tax plan. However, as he stated himself federal taxes are just the tip of the iceberg. And both candidates have plans to spend money on other things. My vote still stands though #Meteor2016
The bigger issue is that Trump has shown no loyalty to what he said in the past. There's no reason to think that anything he says will be carried out.
he said the same thing in past.. watch trump's previous videos. he's very consistent.
Not like a politician to go back on what he's said in the past.
Svensk
More trustworthy than Trump. The guy can't even trust himself and people want to put the nuclear codes in his hands.
You should read his 100-day promise
Andrew Koroluk
Campaign promises mean nothing, HOW is he going to do any of them? He's clearly shown he knows nothing about how the government works.
Hank, Steve, and John Green are the best three brothers on TH-cam. I want to see a video with the three of them.
Hey John, I always hear Small Business owners get up in arms about Hillary, saying that she will make it hard for small business to grow, so they are going with Trump. Do we have a clear picture of how either candidate is handling Small Business?
Thanks!
Well, I am a small business owner, so this is something I spend a lot of time thinking about, and I'm just not sure where the "Clinton is bad for small businesses" thing comes from. Trump's original tax plan would've been EXTREMELY friendly to small businesses (it basically would've allowed me to have a tax rate of 15% on my business's profit), but that proposal seems to have been abandoned. (There is some talk that it might come back.)
The only part of Clinton's tax policy that might not be small business friendly is the adjustment to the estate tax: If you are (or were until someone died) married, your estate tax exemption would go from $11,000,000 to $7,000,000. So if the business's assets lest liabilities are over $7m, that would be taxed at I think 45%. (i.e., if your company was worth $10,000,000, the people who inherited it from you would pay $1.35m in estate taxes--probably over a 10-year period.) But I also feel like if your business is worth >7m, you are not really a SMALL business as such. -John
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Can you please moderate the next Presidential debate?
What about the out of control spending on a yearly basis by our Government?
I mean, it was $3,900,000,000,000 this year. And no signs of it slowing whatsoever. 2,100,000,000,000 of that money goes to entitlements. You know, welfare(in its many and various forms), Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP ect.
So the real question should be, how does this stop? How do so many people of the country stop being enslaved and dependant to the state?
A living wage. Corporations are the biggest abusers of social systems, and they throw a fit over paying their taxes.
And who causes there not to be a livable wage, government? See high taxation, cost of production, benefits, inflation, insane regulations, all contribute to low wages and all of those are the fault of government policies not the corporations.
I disagree. I see the profits going to the higher ups and split among shareholders, and corporations don't want to pay a livable wage to take a cut out of that. They still find can get poor bastards to work for them because corporations rely on social systems, the standard of living is down, they outsource skilled positions and will only hire part time for low skill positions, and politicians (BOTH conservative and democrat) continue to excuse, justify, and legalize it because our politicians ARE THE CORPORATIONS. And we regulate and tax these assholes so they can't continue to exploit and poison our water, resources, and CHILDREN and pass the buck onto US!
Donbd83 My family owns a small business as well. I understand the difficulties and how hard it can be to pay your bills and employees. Personally, I feel a problem with the big banks and corporations is all of the bailouts, tax cuts, and other measures that defy a market economy. If these institutions can't deliver a marketable product or service without going under, then they must fail and allow the market to fill the void. These protectionism's should be given to newly formed small businesses with little capital and finances. I know that not every business can succeed, but it would be nice.
Donbd83 We agree much more than we disagree. My only disagreement is that Trump is either successful at what he does, that his (lacking) skills are applicable as president, that he even really understands politics, and that he would do good for ALL the people of the United States. Whether he'd benefit the white middle class (like myself) or not, I believe Trump would violate human rights and I will not support him in anyway. I will not support Clinton either because she's a liar and corrupt, everything that is currently wrong with the system. I believed in Bernie, and I think Trump gets his support sort of in the same fashion from conservatives. He isn't perfect, but he's genuine and it's a change. I'll be voting third party basically as an act of defiance to both candidates.
Your political videos are soooo helpful! These are my absolute favorites! Keep up the good work guys!
Can you do a video on Clinton's estate tax. I've read some articles and seen the numbers but I don't really know how the different brackets translate into real life. Does the average family business reach that size or no?
I'll edit the top comment with an explanation of this. Thanks for the question. -John
How come you never mentioned the $10 trillion Obama added to the national debt? You act like $2 trillion is doomsday, but Obama's $10 trillion is no biggie, right?
Faceless Man Because Obama isn't running and the "10 trillion" wasn't from taxes. It all started with Bush's wars which continually added to it along with the recession he had to deal with that also was from Bush. Once you take out those two as well all other non-tax issues, it's a much smaller number.
Rollin Kocher
You leftist morons have no defense of Obama other than to cry BUSH! I wonder if you actually believe that, or if you're just THAT desperate to defend a failed administration.
I know you liberals have short term memories, but let me remind you. When Obama was running as President he talked a lot about expensive social policies and bailouts (including his $800 billion to Wall Street). Many reported asked him "How will you pay for all of that." He said "I'll end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and use that money to pay for this stuff." And the libiots believed him - I bet you believed him as well. Well he ended those wars and started other wars, then started ANOTHER war in Iraq with ISIS. And still managed to drive the debt up to $20 trillion dollars (Up from 10). Obama was a failure, you can't blame Bush for that.
Its called math and economy dude. If you continually lose money and then a president comes in, the money won't just halt it's speed going into the negatives. It will continue to fall from the main issue. Well it took a long time and a lot of money to fix it.
You missed something crucial about Trump's plan. He also proposes significant tariffs on imports from countries with whom he have large trade deficits, such as China. How much revenue would that raise? Not only that, but if they have the intended effect of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, those factories would then pay the corporate tax, plus the employees would be paying taxes. That would increase revenue.
It still wouldnt bridge the gap, and would prevent growth.
Raising tariffs on china would be unprecedented. China will almost certainly raise tariffs on our goods causing a massive recession between the two of us. Almost certainly a global depression if we raised tariffs on other nations with whom we have large trade deficits. See Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act.There is almost always gonna be place that has lower costs to manufacturer goods than us, and while manufacturing might bring a few jobs back, the cost to buy goods would skyrocket.
Thanks for that.
Not as much as you think. We can already buy clothing Made in the USA for reasonable prices at places like American Apparel. The difference is you don't have as big of a profit for the CEOs, or as much for stock investors. Just better paid workers.
Imperator, I'm actually publishing an article this Sunday explaining the details, but I ran some projections, and Trump's tariffs, using the same methodology used by the Tax Policy Center, would reduce that $6.2 trillion to $2.73 trillion. And I only considered his proposed tariffs for China, Mexico, and Japan.
well trump it is.
Thanks so much for making an informative video that doesn't make fun of or insult anyone so that everyone can benefit from the information!
im registered to vote
my first election eligible to vote is a presidential election which is exciting until i think of the two major candidates and how niether of them represent my ideas
and I live in ohio
a major swing state meaning i am basically required to vote for a candidate whom i do not like simply in an attempt to prevent a candidate i like less from getting Ohio's electoral college votes
voting on principal is not a particularly good idea for me
then I hope you make the right decision :)
I think it is very brave to go voting even if you feel you are not getting the choice you wanted. Also, by watching this video you show that you have made an effort to make an informed decision :)
Tbh, as a Dutch person I don't know a lot about US politics, but as I can see it from here, you really should pay close attention to the next elections for your state, as this is where most of the progress in the US is made these days. Other than that, I sincerely hope for all 300 and something million of you that one day, Congress will do its job again.
Cheers
Nol van Gerven
yes i am trying to stay informed
i have been reasearching and reading about politics daily for a few years now
You have the power! Save us, Collin Smith!
Nolan Leonard that would be a strong argument if i wasnt an mechanical engineering student with a minor in alternative energy and is very concerned about climate change
i want to see fossil fuels abandoned as soon as possible
trump thinks climate change is a hoax
I watched this video trying to make myself feel smart... I left with a headache.
Yep just spend $1.1 trillion on military.. What an utter waste of money and energy that would be, cut military spending by half and giving that $800 billion to NASA
Why would you give that all to NASA?
Because space!
800 BILLION DOLLAS!!!!!! Do you know what NASA can do with this hypothetical annual budget?
Why is it a waste? Why only 800 Billion? Why Nasa? You're a very arbitrary person.
CapAnson12345 No offence but you seem like you're just trying to be smart
I love it when you make videos like this.
Vote for Hillary Clinton
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Vote for Donald Trump
Vote for her to go to jail.
God... Condescending Hillary supporters are worse than aggressive trump supporters.
"Vote for Hillary Clinton" how about you not tell people what to do? Believe it or not you aren't helping anyone by treating people like sheep.
Wow you're some really triggered SJW troll if that's how you add to a discussion.
Can you run for president?
His slogan could be "Go Green or Go Home"
+
+
It's kind of you to ask, but I would hate that job. You have to ask rich people for money and shake strangers' hands. -John
Touka Kirishima +
How about corporations?
lol Bernie supporter
Didn't expect that reaction here - btw, who do you support?
Corporate taxes are pretty simple. Trump cuts top rate from 40 to 15. Clinton offers a bunch of discounts for small biz, and startups.
Not clear which is better (unlike with the income tax plans). The corporate income tax is widely regarded as too high. And 25% or so would be internationally competitive. Going past that has little benefit though.
It has much benefit to lower it as compared to existing countries it is why our companies fled to China and Mexico in the first place lower taxes, less tax equates to more profit, the bottom line which corporations care deeply about.
not really, many companies are still headquartered in america and still pay that corporate tax
corporations love that near zero labour cost though, and alot of raw materials is cheaper outside too
As a former economist I want to thank you for the concise, comprehensive and fair way you presented the proposals. I would only quibble with taking the conservative Tax Foundation's Laffer curve type arguments. The empirical evidence just does not show a high correlation between low taxes and higher growth. States with higher taxes (e.g. California, New York) tend to have higher growth than states with lower taxes. A better correlation of growth is educational attainment with higher attainment correlated to higher growth.
preparing for the bias . . .
GavenTheGreat
No bias in this video, just an objective review
Of course john is biased(everyone is) and that shows in the video but that doesn't change the fact that all the brought up points are true.
I think he/she/they meant the comment section, not the video.
Language has a bias unless you are the rare Lojban speaker. Bias is one of those words that people throw around, but I don't think they know how it actually affects them. Excessive bias is what your thinking about.
You have to accept bias, because normal bias is a linguistic trait that contains meaning important to the subject. If you ignore bias, you don't truly understand the point of the subject as a receiver of information.
It's an objective review with his opinion at the end. I don't think he meant for it to be any other way.
You overvalue the benefit of federal revenue, if there is more growth and more wealth in the country, there won't be as much need for government welfare plans. Also, Hillary's plan is basically to do nothing at all while Trump wants to change things, there is no way to predict the future but you can always fear monger over change compared to the status quo, even when the status quo isn't good enough
Jeremy Bennett "change things" like what? Also, that only happens if the lower wage owners get a wage increase that stays with inflation, and productivity growth. Which is absolutely not what Donald Trump, Republicans, or many Democrats want.
Jeremy Bennett We don't live in a isolation. Look at other countries. We need strong social services and regulation of big business.
David A. "we don't live in isolation" What is your point? What countries are you referring to?
Jeremy Bennett Not here to argue with anyone because I don't have hours and hours to research the exact numbers on growth, etc. But I believe that under Trumps plan, you can't compare current statistics with his potential statistics. What I mean is that there will be many new laws and trade deals under trump. Meaning that if the us gdp goes up, people's wages won't stagnate. That means less entitlement programs and a larger work force. If we get rid of most of the trade deals that cost us money and create new tariffs, etc, I think the actual well being and income of us citizens will be better. I think it's possible to slowly reduce the deficit as well. However I don't think that trump is going to get elected and then magically the deficit starts going down immediately, it will take time. What I would really like to see in government is instead of regulating big businesses, let's try reducing the power of the federal government so that the politicians will not be able to take money from billionaires to pass bs laws that make it easier for them to stay in business. (Just my thoughts)
Jackson Mcgrady Totally agree with you man. Clinton represents the class that is trying to do this which is why I support Trump. The richest billionaires like Soros want to stop him so that they can rig society so that they will be able to stay in business and profit forever no matter what they do while everyone else gets poorer.
why does he talk about federal revenues going down like its a bad thing?
aren't we pissed that the government continually wastes/"loses" money all the time?
When those drops in revenue are not coupled with a decrease in spending, yes, that is a bad thing. That means the national deficit increases, raising the likelihood of our national debt becoming more than we can pay. That's a problem that's probably still years away, but if we don't start addressing that deficit, it will become a problem, and we will enter into the debt spiral John talked about.
kerchew Not to mention he wants to increase military spending...How do you expect to increase what the government does while also cutting the revenue it receives WHEN IT ALREADY HAS A DEFICIT
I really enjoy listening to someone intelligent talk about politics in a relatively unbiased way. Its really refreshing.