A lot of quibbling here on what to pay bottom feeders in a country that is no longer capitalist, but instead has degenerated into a state of corporate kelptocracy, with the state running on leveraged debt, created by the US Central Bank.
The US has chronic budget and trade deficits and this is enabled by the US creating out nothing, but confidence and military might, the US dollar.
The monopolistic corporate overlords have bought the political system and created a corporate welfare system based on no taxation due to legal tax shelters, unregulated immigration to suppress domestic wages, and a mass media that ensures mass dissonance.
Inflation rages on necessities, wages having remained stagnant, only poor paying jobs available while the rent seeking rich accumulate riches in their self-entitled system - and here we are shamefully arguing about a few crumbs for the serfs. 
Divide and conquer really does fool most of the people, a lot of the time.