Summary
The IRS anticipates a $500 billion revenue loss as taxpayers increasingly skip filings following cuts from Elon Musk under Trump.
The IRS, set to downsize by 20% by May 15, has seen increased online chatter about avoiding taxes, with individuals betting auditors won’t scrutinize accounts.
Experts warned that workforce reductions could cripple the agency’s efficiency.
Treasury officials predict a 10% drop in tax receipts compared to 2024.
Former IRS commissioners have criticized the cuts, warning of dysfunction and reduced collection capacity.
I will have to read about the union busting so will only respond to the second bit
Alex can indeed form his own one man security company and shoot bob dead if he wishes to die as well. Because when bob is killed bob’s security service will go after alex and persue the death penalty against alex. Alex’s newly formed security company (himself) won’t have the resources to defend him. When bob security vs alex security gets heard in arbitration the arbitrator is going to rule in favor of bob security which will then carry out the death penalty against alex. If the arbitrator ruled in favor of alex even though he was clearly in the wrong that arbitrator would rapidly be discredited and their business would shrink as security companies use the arbitrators compeditors.
Its modern court but without government monopoly. The government is a “trust”.
Why would Alex listen to the other arbiter? Why not shoot them, too? Why not get a bunch of your friends, and fight your enemies until you establish yourself as a local warlord? That’s what these security companies would be positioned to do, and that’s going to bring out the worst of humanity.
Meanwhile, what if Bob was behind on his payments? Is this going to be like The Purge, where you can just do crimes to anyone who can’t afford private security? That’s going to extra suck for groups that are historically economically disadvantaged (women, children, descendants of slaves, chronically ill, to name a few)
And again, there’s not really a reason for these different entities to compete when they can instead form a cooperative trust. That’s sort of the history of the gilded age in the US. it sucked for most people.
It sounds like it’s going to devolve into the rule of might-makes-right, where whoever has the most guns and willing soldiers gets to say what’s what. Real life has at least some thin wrappers around might-makes-right, with rights enumerated in the constitution