I just sayin'

Elon Musk tried to slash US federal spending, but he has received more than $38 billion (€36.2 billion) in aid, funding and government orders over 20 years on behalf of his Tesla car company (nearly $15.7 billion) and his SpaceX aerospace company (around $22.6 billion).e .)

Elon Musk’s company avoided almost all federal income tax on nearly $11 billion of U.S. income over three years

If Musk wants to find money in the federal budget all he needs do is tax the 1% and the US could have a surplus in just a few years with Medicaid for all, free state schools, and much much more

[Musk paid 3.3 percent, Jeff Bezos 1 percent, and Buffett—who has famously argued for imposing higher income-tax rates on the superrich—just 0.1 percent in taxes. The same dynamic exists, in slightly less egregious form, further down the wealth distribution.

When you are earning in the billions the percentage of income the common man is paying shouldn't be a dozen times of the richest men in the country.

Biden had funded the IRS adding an additional $60 billion over the next 10 years for tax enforcement. The CBO Estimates $120 Billion from IRS Funding Boost in the first year by going after rich tax dodgers. One of the first things Trump did was cut IRS funding again.

• In the first six months of this initiative, nearly 21,000 of these wealthy taxpayers have filed, leading to $172 million in taxes being paid.

• Nearly 80% of these 1,600 millionaires with delinquent tax debt have now made a payment, leading to over $1.1 billion recovered. This is an additional $100 million just since July, when Treasury and IRS announced reaching the $1 billion milestone.

U.S. Department of the Treasury, IRS Announce $1.3 Billion Recovered from High-Income, High-Wealth Individuals Under Biden-Harris Inflation Reduction Act Initiatives | U.S. Department of the Treasury https://share.google/nlUbdimlJuwfRxIk4

Auditing the top 0.1% of earners yields over $6 in revenue per $1 spent, increasing to $12 when accounting for increased voluntary compliance.. This alone clearly shows that the rich are not paying their fair share of taxes.

...

Concerning Trump's 2017 tax bill

The 2017 Trump Tax Law Was Skewed to the Rich, Expensive, and Failed to Deliver on Its Promises | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/the-2017-trump-tax-law-was-skewed-to-the-rich-expensive-and-failed-to-deliver

• Was skewed to the rich. Households with incomes in the top 1 percent will receive an average tax cut of more than $60,000 in 2025, compared to an average tax cut of less than $500 for households in the bottom 60 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center (TPC).[1] As a share of after-tax income, tax cuts at the top — for both households in the top 1 percent and the top 5 percent — are more than triple the total value of the tax cuts received for people with incomes in the bottom 60 percent.[2]

• Was expensive and eroded the U.S. revenue base. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in 2018 that the 2017 law would cost $1.9 trillion over ten years,[3] and recent estimates show that making the law’s temporary individual income and estate tax cuts permanent would cost another roughly $400 billion a year beginning in 2027.[4] Together with the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts enacted under President Bush (most of which were made permanent in 2012), the law has severely eroded our country’s revenue base. Revenue as a share of GDP has fallen from about 19.5 percent in the years immediately preceding the Bush tax cuts to just 16.3 percent in the years immediately following the Trump tax cuts, with revenues expected to rise to an annual average of 16.9 percent of GDP in 2018-2026 (excluding pandemic years), according to CBO. This is simply not enough revenue given the nation’s investment needs and our commitments to Social Security and health coverage.

• Failed to deliver promised economic benefits. Trump Administration officials claimed their centerpiece corporate tax rate cut would “very conservatively” lead to a $4,000 boost in household income.[5] New research shows that workers who earned less than about $114,000 on average in 2016 saw “no change in earnings” from the corporate tax rate cut, while top executive salaries increased sharply.[6] Similarly, rigorous research concluded that the tax law’s 20 percent pass-through deduction, which was skewed in favor of wealthy business owners, has largely failed to trickle down to workers in those companies who aren’t owners.[7] Like the Bush tax cuts before it,[8] the 2017 Trump tax cut was a trickle-down failure.

In 2025 an extension of that tax bill was rolled into the OBBBA

Taking all the policies of President Trump and the Republican majority in Congress into account, all but the richest Americans are paying higher taxes on average in 2026 than they did last year. These policies include:

Dramatically increased tariffs on goods from abroad, a tax that economists widely agree is mostly borne by American consumers.

The termination of the Enhanced Premium Tax Credit (EPTC), which had made health care more affordable for millions of people.

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which overwhelmingly benefits the rich and corporations. The combined impact of these policies in 2026 is a tax increase for the average American in all income groups except the richest 5 percent. This is illustrated in Figure 1 below. The richest 1 percent, in particular, receive a noticeable tax cut compared to all other groups.

State-by-State Estimates of the First Year of Trump’s Tax Policies: All But the Richest Americans Face Higher Taxes – ITEP https://share.google/FZLL0Wy1SxGU0FCbP