I can understand complaining about specific policies or waste in government etc, but there seems to be a tea party libertarian republican crowd that seems to think taxes themselves are inherently evil. The whole premise of the tea party movement was that taxation
with representation was inherently bad (even just after being given the biggest tax cut in history after several other large tax cuts and taxes being at their lowest point in nearly a century). So while this blog is not directed to people who want the government to make better decisions or be more efficient, I feel the need to address this "taxes are bad" mentality.
If you actually went through line by line at the taxes people pay and told them what they pay for, there is almost nothing anyone would object to. If you said "do you want to pay this tax that goes to maintaining the roads so everyone's car isn't constantly stuck in the mud" how many people would disagree with that? If you said "this big chunk of your taxes goes to having a standing army so people don't invade us, kill you, rape your mother, sister and daughter and make off with your things", how many people would disagree with that? If they said "this big chunk here goes to medicare so that if grandpa starts getting senile and you and your wife both work full time and can't make sure he doesn't burn the house down 24/7, you have more options than just smothering him with a pillow", how many people would disagree with that?
If taxes and the services they came with were optional, how many people wouldn't check the box labeled "potable water"? The fact is that as shitty as the government is (and I've bitched as much as anyone) , at least 90% of what it does is actually really, really good. To the point of actually being necessary. Not everything good in society comes from taxes, but without the things taxes provide we wouldn't really have anything else. We would have no civilization at all.
So if you're one of these "taxes are tyranny" people, please just shut the fuck up.
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Whenever I moan about taxes, I'm definitely moaning more about the way the government allocates them rather than actually paying them. Our PM is putting something like $5B towards new prisons in Canada and it's like.. "Piss off. How about you don't upgrade them at all and put that money towards the schools in Canada and health/sports programs." We have plenty of frozen islands up north with polar bears living on them that we can put all the rapists/murderers.
Although, the thing that annoys me most is paying part of my paycheque into EI (unemployment pay) when I consciously put money away for that specific purpose. I suppose I'm a little conservative that way, but I've always been very good with my money, and Canada isn't really suffering in the economic shit pile that the USA is. There's jobs here.
Slow clap. Thank you.
No matter where one lives, there is a piper who needs to be paid. "Off the grid" people tend to need rescuing, now and then. Your sentiments are well put.
I have friend (it is kinda amazing that we are friends when I think about it) who firmly believes that parents and parents alone should pay the cost of educating their children. So I said, what about the parents who can't afford to send their kids to school? She said, they shouldn't have kids. But they do, I said. What do we do with all those kids? They don't get an education, was her answer. She couldn't see the chaos this would cause, or the effect it have on her personnally.
She also believes that only land owners should vote. She's one wacky chick.
you should listen to an episode of This American Life called "What Kind of Country." it looks at what happens to communities when taxes are insufficient to pay for public services. it also shows the hypocrisy of those who are adamantly against taxes.
The people who want no taxes and little gov't remind me that the only thing worse than a totalitarian police state is anarchy, which is what you get with no taxes and no government.
remember, tax cuts work well for the liaise-faire crowd in two ways: 1)
since an employer has to include tax, implicitly, as a payroll expense
(i.e., you gotta pay a worker enough to be able to afford his crust of
bread *after* tax, not before), tax cuts represent an indirect payroll
cut: a wage reduction. 2) government runs on taxes, and government is a
thorn in the side of the dominant, unenlightened capitalist model. lower
taxes gets "government off (the) back" of the profit-before-people
paradigm.
so right, the whole cut taxes thing has been going on now since reagan. and meanwhile the other wage reducing factor, i.e., the global race to the bottom, has been continuing apace. at this point, real income has been so dramatically reduced that the formerly great american middle class, sinking in an ever-deepening sea of debt, sees any tax as "too much tax".
and that's just the way the fat cats like it.
Thank you, as an accountant everybody seems to think I want to hear them complain about the level of taxes we pay. I sometimes wish the US had a place for people to live without taxes and the services it provides, but even that would be tax supported.
"I've been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No. No," - Craig T. Nelson
Looks like all the pro tea partiers are taking your advice and not saying anything. Then again who are these "Puppets"? Are they pawns of the Koch brothers and other rich folks who invented the "tea Party concept to used people? How many are disillusioned by what happened to the United States in 2009-2011?
America could have used more stimulus to get us out of the recession faster...thank you tea party folks who proved this statement because less stimulus is not working in Europe.
Thank you tea Party for the nuts who will be kicked out of office.
Thank you tea Party for allowing more tea Partiers to show their true colors.
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When folks have to detour around unsafe bridges, find less police and fire protection and find their country unable to wage war, go find a tea Partier and thank them appropriately and get them out of office.
People bitching about taxes is like the 10 year old bitching about going to school. He doesn't want to go. He hates being forced to go. He'd chuck the whole thing in if he could. But then he grows up, sees the bigger picture, and recognises that just cos something isn't fun, just cos you can't see the immediate and tangible results, doesn't mean you get not to do it.
Except, of course, sometimes he doesn't grow up. Sometimes he joins the Tea Party instead.
thank goodness i never have to pay any taxes until now...
(not saying tax is bad, just saying i'm glad no to have to pay for them just yet)
Yeah... I actually object to Medicare. I work in medical billing if that helps clear it up a tad.
Unless you are in the tax bracket in which more than 50% of your earnings are taken out of your paycheck each month, I think maybe you shouldn't b!tc# about people b!tc#!ng about taxes.