"It Should Be Illegal To Be as Wealthy As You!" - HEATED Tax Debate With Sam Seder 

I never comment negatively on RU-vid, but this guy is... something else.

"A socialist will give you the shirt off of some else's back"

I am a 67 year old single woman who just retired last year after being in the workforce for 51 years. I PAID in to social security for those 51 years. I paid into a 401k for 38 years and lost 1/3 of that in the crash. I have paid into every thing possible to prepare for retirement. I take social security because I paid in to it. I would appreciate Adam not calling it a hand out, or entitlement program.

The post office? The thing that operates at a loss. You be telling me the DMV is smooth operation.

The government doesn’t pay for anything…the people do.

Don't you love it when a person intentionally misunderstands and refuses to answer simple straightforward questions because the answers would easily destroy their argument

I work in government as a healthcare provider. I waste ZERO time arguing with insurance companies to cover treatments, but I also am not presured to tack on as many treatments and expenses to my patients as I have been in private practice. In private practice I have literally be told, "you aren't ordering enough braces for patients" because they want the patient to pay, even for something I deem unneccessary. I also was told to spred out visits and only pick ONE thing to cover. Now, in government, I can see as much as I am comfortable with so my patients dont have to make several visits. I also put in my plans for patients to just call my clinic if they are getting worse with physical therapy and I will order an MRI. In private practice I would eventually get fired for passing up on forcing another visit that can be billed. Government can be much more efficient and cheaper overall in medicine because the decisions I make on patient care are in no way incentivised by racking up as many charges as possible. I am only incentivised to do what I think is medically neccessary for my patients.

3% Medicare administrators cost means nothing when the actual medical cost are 10x higher then private insurance. My girlfriend is a nurse in a hospital and she says you won’t believe the number of women who don’t want to pay $15 for a pregnancy test so they go to the ER because Medicare will make it free for them. Yet the hospital is billing Medicare $4k just for the room alone smh

The big difference between Patrick and Sam that says it all for me is; Patrick has his elderly father living in his home as part of his family. Sam mentioned he loved Medicare/Medicaid cause it pays for his mother in the nursing home so he doesn’t have take care of her.

If the government was efficient and effective; people wouldn’t mind paying taxes 😂

No one paid 90%. There were even more loopholes and shelters back then. They averaged closer to 42%, which practically mirrors what is paid in by the high rollers today.

Taking Raegan's example at it's word (assuming it could be extrapolated out to others in highly skilled contract work), doing 2 movies instead of 5 results in a democratized industry that encourages investing in new and diverse talent. The 5 movies still get made, they just give other actors a shot rather than oversaturate the market with Raegan doing a Raegan impression. Or to modernize it into a relevent example, Chris Prat and Jack Black voicing every cartoon character for a squillion dollars a pop

I think I finally figured out what annoys me the most about Sam Seder: He is convinced that only HE knows the true motivations of everyone.

The fundamental issue with taxes is that we do not receive services commensurate to taxes paid, not by a long shot.

Wild how every one is talking about raising taxes but nobody is talking about cutting spending

Im not sure how that would work with international businesses. Sounds like it creates more opportunities for foreign countries to emerge in the US market since large companies will scale back

It's never about how the taxes will help, they just want to see those with more than them punished. It's envy, not compassion.

All good when you have an efficient government, an honest government, a government that cares for its people and better yet, a government who doesn't sell its country to its enemies.

Charities often have a 95% overhead. This is not any better than giving it to the government.

The point being, that without the private sector, the government, which does not create revenue, there would be no markets to innovate the means of production and distribution.

Back in the 50's Nobody Paid 90% there were tons of tax shelters in the IRS Tax rules

When paying for something: 1. Using your money, you go for cheap + quality. 2. Using someone else's money, you go for quality and dont care for cost. 3. Using someone else's money and buying for someone else, you dont care for quality or cost. That's government spending

Here’s my argument for higher taxes. If a business or person is making enough money to be in that bracket, they will be incentivized to find ways to write off some of that income. Like philanthropy, investing, putting money back into their employees and businesses. Thereby reducing the need for government to spend money on some social needs.

My father in law had Medicare and Medicaid and was in a nursing home. The cost monthly was around $8000 charged to the government in an old but clean nursing home. One month they said to my wife we are going to apply to receive authorization from Medicare to give her father music therapy.......my wife said great. We went to see him the next month and they had a cassette player in his room playing classical music which was great. Do you know how much they charged the government? $5000 for the music therapy. This was 10 years ago.....not even a CD😂🎉😢

"I'm not suggesting we reduce revenue from businesses." That guy is assuming nobody is going to change their behavior based on government policy. Do Socialists not understand cause and effect?

If envy and jealousy could be communicated as a policy, this is it...

Barriers to entry is a big issue. We learned about this in one of my economics classes.

Maybe for an entrepeneur/ sole proprietor but when you invest and are a shareholder.... if its a public traded company like apple and you divide 3 million to 10 millio. Plus shares. No one will invest, company valuations go down, and many peoples 401k and investments will tank....

You can't make the poor not be poor by making it illegal for the wealthy to be wealthy. I'm 1 of 4 kids in my family. We were all taught the same things about money and yet ALL 4 of us have drastically different outcomes based off mostly effort. There will always be the person who is willing to sacrifice everything to become wealthy and those who wont sacrifice a donut to be wealthy.

After watching and fully understanding how much of our tax dollars are wasted by the government and not used to help the people of this country, I’m fully all in the no more taxes boat. It’s ridiculous.

1.A 06:00 1.B 07:28 1. When you actually spend time considering how it would be structured on paper to enact what he's talking about,it would arguably be less impactful on the rich as it would be on Middle & Lower classes. 1st it would have to be applied universally to be ethical & fair. 2nd He suggests paying tax strictly off your profit. After all overhead costs of running the business. I can only assume he means instead of paying tax as is,otherwise thos is simply an additional tax. If so then *Essentially he suggests swapping the 'the tax bracket system' for a single tax to be applied after Essential costs have been paid!* Effectively this would eradicate the Classes all together,which there already isn't many degrees of separation between the Mid & Lower classes now days. Would it have an impact on the Grotesquely rich? Sure,yet nowhere near how devastating it would be for the rest of us! Yet he then contradicts himself by saying *"Pay tax on every dollar earned"* Aside from perishable's,we already do sir. For every purchase or even competing Bank Fee's for gaining access to your money. Face it folks,this system already had it's built-in limits. This was just not widely understood until *Industrialization,Mechanization & Mass Production. * If they were/are the Engines,then Capitalism is the Vehicle* which skyrockets us towards the abyss! *Yet some would have us add Nos to it by going %100 Digital! *These people are insane!!!*

Larger companies could contribute lots more to retirements but they don’t have to because they are able to be better and cheaper than smaller companies. The small companies are being killed out by the bigger guys. As a company grows and learn efficientcies it gets cheaper or more goes to profit.

I live in Canada and make well into 6 figures. I pay 54% on every dollar I make over $235K and it pisses me off. I've evaluated relocating to Florida for tax purposes. It doesn't keep me from working and trying to earn more but it is extremely frustrating to see so much money going to an inept government.

Perfect example of the rule: don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from.

If anything. $5million cap but at that point company/owner is taxed normally up to $5m then 50% of anything above that goes back to employeess' wages/incentives for loyal employees (3-5year) major pay raises. New hires keep base/start pay.

Where in the hell did they find Skid Row Leno?

When Sam brings up the 90% tax of the fifties he doesn't mention they had deductions out the Wazoo and nobody paid 90%.

Sam needs to lay off the soy, daytime tv and Marxism.

I am 59. We were told in 1979, when I got my first job, Social security was for my retirement. I have been working at my job for 40 years. They starting a matching IRA account in the early 1990s. What are you talking about?

Every cries about the in equality of the income, but no one talks about the work input inequality. If you build something up, you get the rewards. If you just work and you get paid what you get, it's not the employer being greedy, maybe your worth in the market isn't what you think.

He fully understood Pat's question, he just didn't want to admit he's wrong.

My parents got a 40 dollar a month increase on social security, and now the government says they make too much and took their 300 month food stamps.

It’s not just actors or realtors. No one, including surgeons and essential businesses, is going to work if you take 90% of their income. It’s a slippery slope to bread lines.

Sleezy Sneeder as usual has not tried to even theoretically apply his policies to himself

Sam walked into a bar and says drinks are on me 🍻.. Who's paying?

Imagine if the working class could keep that 30% of their income

It was 3 kids trying to debate an adult who has lived a life

Those top line tax %s had well over a hundred pages of caveats that made it more of a administrative move vs an actual tax revenue maker. The corporate tax rates were higher than they are now (37%) but thinking that high taxes equated to less weath inequality and the most glorious of decades is some of the stupidest shit I've heard in a very long time.

Wow, my Mom worked hard her entire life. Her Social Security was helpful but I would NEVER put her in a nursing home . Especially a government funded and managed one. I took care of her until her last breath. She taught me to NEVER RELY ON GOVERNMENT for anything. God bless her!

Rumor has it there's never been dirt under Sam's fingernails.

“Hold on! Let me ask my question.”

Earn $400k and then get taxed 90%!! How do people come up with this stuff.

It is refreshing to have a place where people with different views can have a civil conversation

I’m a plumber sitting at home because after I’ve made $120k, it’s just not worth it to work anymore. I get my pants taken away from my paycheck every week. Guess what happens to home service prices when plumbers stay home and do side jobs to avoid taxes?

90% worked in the 50s. The flaw in the hosts point about people will stop working after they reach 3 million income. If I'm a manufacturer of a product and I stop due to taxes being too high someone else will step in to produce that product. Bingo two oeople now making 3 million rather that one making 6 million

Listen I'm a low earner I support my family but we live paycheck to paycheck. I don't think we should tax anyone at 90%. We need to hold the government accountable for the way they spend money.

This guy has such a victim mentality. I love that Pat laughed out loud at him.

The minute Pat says "let's process this together" it's game on 😂😂💀💥🔥

I am an estimator for construction jobs for government contracts. If it is an 8A set aside, my normal bid for a $100k project would turn into $160k just because of the stipulated required increases the government makes us include. So instead of profiting $15-30k on that $100k, it turns to $75-90k profit for the business. Yes, PROFIT take home for the company owner after all overhead

What a great debate...so much to learn. Fair chair Pat and you allowed them to talk, very interesting to how yours systems are different to ours in South Africa but the question is what percentage the super rich or show it be a flat rate but all Government waste money....its not theirs period!

"I'm not suggesting that we cut companies' revenue, I'm just suggesting that we take it from them." Sam Seder

This guy has zero clue about what government healthcare really is. I worked in Medicare nursing homes for over 13 years and let me you tell you first hand experience it’s horrible healthcare!!! The doctors are awful, they often won’t run tests that are needed because they don’t deem it necessary, the food is horrific. I could go on and on.

Problem is that Medicare does not lower cost for the citizens and even supplemental doesn't help the vast majority of people save money, in fact you have to pay more for a majority of services.

yeah give the money back to state that generates nothing, it always worked if the money won't go to individuals it will go somewhere else

This dude is seriously insane. Love you give these dudes a platform though. The “other” side would NEVER do this.

“Tax every dollar made after 3 million.” 🤣 Most people would consider 1 million/ year already Uber rich. The host is right it’s always tax the people richer than me.

I’m not cutting revenue, I’m just raising taxes. Thats losing revenue…

As of December 2023, the average check is $1,767.03,from social security. This is not keeping people out of poverty

When someone repeats 'believe me' numerous times, don't believe them

The amount of soy emanating from this guest is outrageous

Mayor Nagin was criticized for allegedly failing to execute the New Orleans disaster plan, which called for the use of the city's school buses in evacuating residents unable to leave on their own. The city never deployed the buses, which were subsequently destroyed in the flooding.

Great conversation, proving that opposing sides are not only respectful of each other, but somehow both hugely likable. An altogether feel-good encounter. Thank you so much for this!

Snivelling Sam doesn't hold a single consistent principle in his entire worldview. All of his "grand visions" are completely arbitrary and squarely based on his own narcissism, faux compassion, and superiority complex. Sam knows how to spend your money better than you do.

Sam Seder is the definition of Covid-19 booster shot after shot

His comment about consumer satisfaction in Medicare---yeah, they can use it as much as they want---almost completely free and copays are much less---so you don't have to be discriminate about it's use, ie, you can use it to go the the Emergency Room for the sniffles--and people do. This is true for all insurance, TO A POINT. But when premiums come out of every check and copays and deductibles are so high, each visit has a larger impact. Yup, he's something else....

He keeps saying he's not cutting revenue, but that's exactly what raising taxes does.

No one was paying 90% The loopholes made sure of that Patreon takes too much so I went else, blew past his own point 😂😂😂

Seder is doing a lot of mind reading here. Never base your opinions on what you *think* someone else is thinking.

What ppl clearly dont seem to undersfand is there isnt an unlimited amout of resources in the world or the US. The more wealthy the 1% become, the less wealthy everyone else becomes.

Medicare and medicaid also limit the number of visits to specialty services yearly, something he doesn't mention. They also cut reimbursement rates for services as well

I was the supply guy for my unit in the military and I once paid 70 dollars for a 10 dollar wrench you could get at Home Depot. PBD is not lying how stupid the government really is.

Yes, the top rate was 90% First, the net rate paid was MUCH less due to the deductions they could take. Second, the unintended consequence was people being paid in benefits not income to get around the tax. Third, lots of capital left the country to countries with lower taxes. If he really believes people paid 90% on taxes, he also would buy a bridge that you had to sell.

I think we can all say trickle-down economics don't work at this point.

This is the fourth or fifth interview I've seen you have with an American lefty in the last 60 days. I'm guessing the majority of your audience aren't exactly Bernie Bros. As someone who's politics pretty well align with Sam Seders you're doing possibly the best job at a long term debate/discussion that I've seen from anyone who's conservative or not left. Having these types of discussions without edit and without trying to talk over the guest builds a lot integrity. I respect that and I look forward to your talks with other American leftys in time.

What admirable ideas. Sam's standards are so high that they're double.

I have alot of thoughts about this. About your examples, if an actor did less movies because of the tax, then other people would get those movie roles. If a real estate agent sells a few less houses per year, then other agents will sell more. We're talking about people making millions of dollars per year, what's wrong with some of that money being spread to others instead of one person? Next example about RU-vid decreasing payout, this one makes 0 sense. Increasing taxes on higher income earners is nothing like having a flat % decrease on ad revenue. I was actually against higher taxes, but it makes sense to me now. If someone only does enough to hit the 90% rate, which would already be millions of dollars, then the rest of what he was doing went to others, I don't see the issue, it actually helps with that huge wealth inequality. Also it would grow the economy. If there was one really rich person vs many rich people, I'm sure more thing would be sold.

Dude makes great points, but 90 percent means over 6 million you would give away more than you keep, over 7 million you would give away more than you keep, and so on, until the people getting your free money would have a better life than the person working

He’s doing everything he can to avoid being responsible for his mothers nursing pay…

"I'm not talking about cutting revenue from business " We are just going to take it from them once they earn it for the good of everyone. Somebody lock this guy in a room with Thomas Sowell and a few actual facts ... stat. No one is going to be disincentivized to work harder when the government reaps the reward of their hard work ... they will do it for their enjoyment of the work.

My view on Private vs. Public comes down to competition. The Free Market makes goods better, and prices cheaper when there is free competition between companies. Not Governments giving out licences to certain people allowing them to operate. Not cartels carving out territories to control the markets. Not mega-corporations who own 6 smaller companies to 'Compete' with themselves. A truly free market with no entry barriers and very low operating costs is what you need. But what about in areas where it would not make sense for there to be multiple competing companies trying to offer similar goods or services. Take for example the utilities. Does it make sense for there to be competing water pipes in a city? Hundreds of Electric Cables running over head? What about multiple train tracks criss-crossing the country because we wanted the competition. All those resources wasted on redundant infrastructure could be better spent on different projects. That's where public is better. When there is no competition, you give it to the government. So it is not beholden to shareholders, but to the public trust of the people.

This tax rate system is just to ensure new money cant sustain being in the top 1%. This is to prevent economic mobility. A fair tax would be low flat tax without loop holes.

This dude is in the clouds, if you make taxes 90% after a certain point, people will literally stop working at that point.

I really respect PBD for interviewing all kinds of people - and also wish we didn’t platform this dude! 😅

The U.S. Postal Service announced its financial results for the 2023 fiscal year ended September 30. The net loss totaled $6.5 billion, compared to net income of $56.0 billion for the prior year.

2/3 of seniors being in senior centers is horrible we have created a society where people don’t take care of their parents so this ruins family values

We don't have a money making problem, we have a government spending problem

That RU-vid question really caught him off-guard LOL

For the goal of keeping seniors out of poverty, yes, social security has been a decent program. The problem is, they changed the law that authorizes it. It is supposed to be like an actual investment account. Where new money coming in is invested, allowed to grow, then cashed in 40 years later. This should work for the most part. The problem is, politicians changed the law and turned the “trust fund” into something closer to a pay day loan. New money coming in is immediately dolled out to recipients. It is not invested, it is not allowed to grow for decades. Nope. New payments are immediately given out to recipients. So the biggest problem is not the program itself, it is how it is administered. Aka the government screwed it up, shocker. Just like how most states lottery system was supposed to be used solely for funding schools, but was immediately made just part of the general fund of the state.

When the tax bracket was 90 percent the lower tax brackett was 20 percent. Today its 10 percent no one is talking about that when they mention the 90 percent brackett. Also social security was 3.4 percent when withholding was 90 percent todays social security is 16 percent for self employed. Also the majority of tax exemptions have been eliminated since there was a 90 percent tax brackett. Pretty simple math 90 percent cannot work.

I had the same thought Pat did. Tax 90% at 3 million? I can guarantee If Sam was making 3 million, he'd want 90% taxation on every dollar past 4 million. What a clown hahaha, I can't blame Pat for laughing 😂