Nobody likes paying higher taxes. I get that. But it seems like the idea of increasing taxes on middle-class Americans* is anathema, political suicide, six steps beyond super-ooper-duper crazy, and slightly worse than worldwide financial meltdown. Note: I’m from California, and Prop 13 passed when I was in first grade, so my perspective comes from that. Please correct any mistaken assumptions here.
It seems like Americans’ attitudes towards tax, particularly income tax, are dramatically different from those in other Western nations. If that’s so, how long has it been like that? Was there a time when Americans were more willing to consider tax increases, and if so, when did it change and why?
*Whether or not to raise taxes on higher incomes is a separate issue, and a bit easier for me to understand why the Ds & Rs have their respective positions.
I think, mainly, but is only a guess. that Americans are not used to GETTING much from their taxes. In other Western countries you appear to get something. Like health care. In the U.S. you pay and pay and pay but never really seem to get anything back. Whenever you need it, there doesn’t seem to be much help available. You really do feel ‘on your own’ with little safety net and so your attitude is ‘well, if I don’t get anything, why should I pay more in? I NEED that money as my safety net’.
I know I know, Americans supposedly DO get benefits from their taxes. It just doesn’t seem like you do.
Because independence is at our nation’s core. We loathe the idea of giving the ant’s food to the grasshopper. If he wanted food, he should have worked all summer like I did.
Secondly, I already pay 33% of my income in taxes to local, state, and federal governments, and that doesn’t even count the sales tax, excise tax, property tax, utility tax, etc. How much more do you need?!
You shouldn’t base everything on what the republicans say. The country is still pretty evenly divided. I think there are an equal number of Americans who are willing to except modest tax increases as long as they are fair, and that’s the rub. Large corporations and the ultra-wealthy aren’t necessarily paying their fair share so why should the middle class make up the difference? Get rid of the loopholes for the rich and corporations, and perhaps the middle class would be even more willing to swallow a tax increase.
A segment of Americans have always gotten hysterical over paying taxes.
It’s the same today. A vocal segment is driving the discussion. Many polls show that the majority would agree to tax increases, especially if they fell on somebody else - and remember that is the only proposal that is on the table today.
There is a segment that doesn’t seem to understand the different between government budgeting and other types - as soon as you hear that government should be run like a business or a home, rational argument ends. And some people are using this as a manufactured crisis for ideological reasons.
Americans are highly in favor of government that benefit them. That’s why social security and medicare reform is impossible. And that’s why there have been articles in the papers about some tea party freshman representatives earmarking billions in projects for their home districts, even though they ran to cut earmarks. It’s probably this hypocrisy that’s at the root of the issue. A segment will always believe that other people are getting all the benefit, and that fear of the other is exploitable. Fear of the Other is behind most every action that Americans have ever taken in their history. Even though we’re the safest and most protected country that’s ever been. There’s a dissertation waiting to happen.
Well, the GQ questions are “is there a difference in America vs. other nations” and “if so, when did this come about”. “Why” is a GD, I’ll admit, but I’m more concerned with the former. dolphinboy suggested it’s a false premise, and a couple of people have expressed the belief that the middle class are paying a disproportionate share. I just can’t imagine that this was the attitude that passed the 16th amendment, though, but I’ll admit my knowledge of US history is pretty shaky in the 20th century.
Part of the reason is that tax increases are not usually (but not always) tied with some very specific goal. They are usually asked for after the money has already been spent and it is time to try to start digging out of the hole. The only problem is that is basically an admission of bad government, bad budgeting, and poor fiscal discipline. The right way to ask for taxes would be to stay within budget almost all of the time but constrain what is attempted. If a new demand becomes clear like better infrastructure, new taxes could be proposed to pay for those and then that money could also be also carefully managed for what it can realistically accomplish. Taxpayers know it doesn’t work that way. A given tax increase could be used for anything including digging us further in a hole. We could easily pay much more in taxes and have nothing to show for it at the end including just as much debt or even more. That is not good and it is one of the biggest reasons don’t like to hand the government blank checks.
Hmmm? On income of $68K (Taxable income of $65 after assorted deductions) I paid $15,567 in federal and provincial taxes, with a marginal tax rate of 35%. Mind you I pay 6000 in property taxes (school and municipality) and sales taxes across the country vary from 5% to 15% I think. Unlike Americans I don't have to pay any health care. (My employer does pay a prescription plan and a dental plan, but it hardly compares with what an American has to cover). As of today, the Canadian dollar is a few cents more than the US.
So either you live in a very high-tax state or you are pulling in one heck of a paycheque. Take comfort that instead of health care, you occupy several pockets of land in Iraq and Afghanistan and have several space shuttles. Plus, your doctors make substantially more than ours. That’s where the money goes.
IN these other countries, how easy is it to kick out the people who do something you don’t like? Politicians around here are always in campaign mode, and thus are scared to do anything that decreases their chances.
Furthermore, there seems to be a much larger incidence of the far right in our country, in the form of those that constantly wants to decrease the size of the government.
Finally, and this is a stretch: we have the highest incidence of creationists per capita. This indicates that a lot of people iare used to ignoring inconvenient facts, hence there are a fairly loud (and possibly large) group of people who do not see the problem with decreasing taxes without decreasing spending, or even while increasing it.
Unlikely. How many Democrats are proposing that? The OP is asking why Americans are opposed to raising taxes on the middle class. I think it’s accurate to say that only a small minority in the US are willing to consider that option. Especially now.
Partly it’s because the US is such a large country. Here in the UK you don’t generally get the sort of radical “all tax is government theft!” Ayn-Rand-libertarians that you get in the US, but the UK is much smaller geographically and has a much smaller population. A better comparison would be the EU, which is roughly the same size as the US. A lot of Brits, particularly on the right, are indeed fiercely opposed to giving any money at all to the EU. There’s a sentiment that it’s just shipping money hundreds of miles away to be wasted on bureaucracy.
Obviously there’s other factors, including the strand of American culture that emphasises hard work, self-sufficiency and suspicion of government; whereas much of Europe, particularly the further east you go, still has a soft spot for communism. But I suspect if all the states in the US were their own countries, with their own completely separate tax and spending systems, the views on taxes in those states would be slightly less fierce and more akin to those you find in places like the UK.
From afar, it seems what is dwhat isn’t acceptable for the electorate doesn’t really matter any more - it’s what the folks who pay for the politicians to become elected want that matters.
There isn’t a ‘democracy’ - if that’s indeed what the USA still is - with this level of disconnection between electors and elected.
That’s an important part. We have Federal, State, and Local taxes. As you get more local, you will find people more willing to increase taxes. For many Americans, the federal government is a remote entity and if they get benefits from it, it’s hard to see. Most of our interactions with government are going to be on the state and local level. That controls our sales tax, our driving laws, our property taxes, our schools, our police, our fire departments…
It can’t be the whole answer, because schools, roads, and parks are all paid for with taxes, and those are pretty tangible everyday benefits. Perhaps people don’t make the connection, but I know I’ve spent a lot more time on the road and in school than at the doctor’s. Everyone in California is complaining about the roads.
Some of my own problem in the US was the confusion between federal and state. My state taxes were much lower than federal taxes, but the state or local authority was the point of contact for most services. In Canada I was astounded that federal and provincial taxes were filed together: you send one cheque, the government divides it appropriately. In the US the state and federal taxes are distinct and separate entities.
ETA: I didn’t see John Mace’s reply when I wrote this. Interesting.
Because there is no end to it. Votes are purchased with other people’s money and eventually people figure out that it’s their money.
The problem is exacerbated by politicians who deliberately spend more money than is taken in. This compounds over time so that less is available to spend because it’s servicing the debt of past decisions. Eventually this financial house of cards collapses. It’s not “if” it will collapse, only when. We’re seeing the results in countries like Greece. It’s a guaranteed event if it isn’t stopped.
I’ll give a clear example of this in my home town. The last stimulus package allowed my city to purchase hybrid buses. They are very expensive machines and we already have a fleet of electric buses. If you assume that everybody got similar expenditures of other people’s money one has to ask who is paying for it? Is your city paying for my city’s “stuff”? If we can’t afford the new buses we certainly can’t afford the stuff your city received. So the answer to this question is no. It’s being financed by China and the cost is passed down to the next generation with a premium attached to it. That means, before the next generation spends a nickel of tax money for their own use, they owe money on today’s debt. By default, more money is collected and less benefit is received for it.
The opposition to tax increases is just an acknowledgment of this process that no matter how much money is taken, it will be squandered. The answer to debt is always a balanced budget. Reversing the debt burden means we have to be willing to get less benefit today for the tax money collected regardless of the amount collected.
Canada (like many other parliametary countries) governments come in 2 flavours - minority, which are deadlocked, even worse into perpetual election mode, and constantly daring the other side to pull the plug… and majority, where the prime minister is dictator for 5 years, and they operate on the theory (usually true) that the public has a short memeory and pretty much anything unpopular can be done as long as there’s at least 2 years to go before an election.
Some countries have regional or factional parties or proportional representation, and so can never achieve majority nirvana. Then you end up like Greece, where nobody can make a difficult decision without a bank pointing a gun at their heads.
The problem with the USA is the primary system. In most other countries, candiadates are selected by a vote of the party; just like the delegates used to do in the old US conventions. The group of party activists doing the selection was rarely more than 1% or 2% of the poulation. The USA by contrast, has primaries where the voters are not necessarily dues-paying party members. Instead of an election between 3 to 10 cnadidates, you have primaries. There. small but organized groups can have an undue influence. Just see how few people it takes to “win” a caucus state -somewhere like a few thousand. As Obama found when he ran for senator, the trick was to win the primary.
A riding nomination in Canada is remarkable if there are 500 people or more attending, and each has to pay $10 to join the party (or the organizer does it for them). Anyone trying to run for congress probably has to work his butt off for 2 years just to win the primary. Also, the head office has to approve the nomination, so there are often subtle messages to “don’t challenge this guy” and sometimes favoured candates are parachuted into a riding.
The issue in any country is going to be willingness to compromise vs. zealot intransigence. Democracy only works if the losers are willing to admit they can’t always win and can’t always get things their way (and the winners don’t exploit their power beyond reason). If even one side holds the position they will not compromise, then eventually the other side will call their bluff - where it inflicts the most damage. However, it takes real damage to get the message across that compromise is necessary.
I think this is completely wrong. First, there have been cuts at the state and local level. Many states have written tax limits into their constitutions, going as far as requiring a super majority to raise taxes. Those states that are the most conservative, and the most concerned with “states rights”, have lower state and local taxes and less local services, with the expected outcome of poor education, low wages, higher rates of infant mortality, and generally poor health. Those states also receive more back from the Federal govt in services than they pay in taxes.
My only guess is that the current opposition to taxes in an extension of the Civil War, the Civil Rights movements, and the Culture War. All things that rural, southern, religious, conservatives lost. Now they just want to starve the apparatus that they see responsible for their humiliation conveniently forgetting how bad things were before.