Aren’t people who receive government aid through housing assistance, food assistance, health care assistance, child care assistance, education assistance, transportation assistance are a bigger burden on society than tax payers, and their behavior should be discouraged?
I assume everyone here are tax payers, since we can all afford luxuries as the internet and computers.
How does it feel to keep pulling the wagon while more and more people decided to sit down and force you to keep pulling?
When tax takers outnumber tax payers you end up with Greece and Italy.
Obama encourages tax takers, while Romney encourages tax payers.
I am a tax payer and Obama’s fairness campaign slogan is 100 percent unfair nonsense.
Well, when you invent a way to magically pull wealth out of your ass, it may be worth a Nobel Prize in Economics, but in the meantime, the social safety net has to be paid for. If you want to do away with that net and deal with the consequences, let’s discuss it.
I’m in the upper 50%-ile WRT income in my country (which incidentally have high taxes in general and a fairly high progressive tax rate), so I’m currently a net tax payer and can definitely answer this question. Even if the OP’s question (and thus my answer) is more IMHO than GD.
As long as my taxes are used to provide a decent social safety net for the less fortunate I have no problem paying more taxes than the average citizen. I can afford it, others can’t and someone has to provide the money for a functioning society. We have to get the money somewhere, and it’s easiest to get them where they’re available. I also believe that my taxes contribute to a safer society for myself. Both by decreasing poverty and crime among the lower class through education, health care and social security, and by providing me with a safety net in case I should have a longish streak of bad luck myself. I regard my taxes partly as my “societal insurance”.
Now, if a large fraction of the population should choose to mooch off of the taxpayers’ contributions, either through corruption, tax evasion or pure laziness (which in my impression is a significant part of the problem in the PIGS countries), I’d probably change my mind about the matter. This would also happen if I was taxed so heavily that I really (as opposed to rhetorically) didn’t get a decent return on my work. But so far, I have the distinct impression that our society works roughly as it was intended to. And since every system necessarily has its inefficiencies and isn’t completely ideal, I can live with the fact that a small fraction of the poorest among us are true moochers and choose to live in (relative) poverty. If we were able to stop all the moochers, we’d also deny a too large fraction of the truly needy their humane minimum standard of living.
It’s all about my trust in the society I’m living in.
I don’t know you can make that assumption based on my response. Simple math tells me that those with higher incomes will pay more taxes, and those with just-getting-by incomes will pay little or none, if the goal is the maximize revenue while imposing minimal hardship.
Besides, “federal income taxes” is a conveniently selective metric, letting one ignore sales, excise, payroll and state taxes.
do welfare recipients pay their fair share on sales taxes, excises taxes, payroll taxes, and state taxes to offset their non payment of federal income taxes?
in california, we just got a new law to allow illegal aliens to get a state driver’s license.
The government does not need to discourage people from being poor. There is already a disincentive to being poor, it’s called “being poor”.
Similarly, government does not need to encourage people to be rich. And even with the government taxing the incomes of rich people, just about everybody still wants to be rich.
Capitalism already provides massive incentives to be rich and successful. The slight incentives provided by government taxation and assistance are not enough to override them.
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Is it fair that tax payers bear the burden of tax takers?
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Yes because they have most of the income. The income for the top 10% has tripled while the majority of us has had our income stay absolutely flat or decline. The top 400 people have more wealth than 150,000,000 Americans at the bottom. The top has made a killing form third world sweatshop labor when all the jobs that paid good living wages were outsourced to Mexico, China, India etc.
You say that so often, I wonder what your basis for comparison is?
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And if someone loses their job because some investment bankers screwed up the economy or an employee’s pension evaporates due to Enron-esque skulduggery or medical bills from a major illness bankrupt an entire family, is that fair too? Was Hurricane Katrina fair? Is corporate welfare fair? And who is the ultimate arbiter of fairness? The government? The courts? The markets? Grover Norquist? You?
You can whine about “fair” or you can consider what is the most practical means of creating and maintaining a healthy and functional society. I refer you to 2square4u’s post above - there are perfectly valid reasons for those with more wealth to subsidize a social safety net, reasons which are in their own best interest as well as everyone else’s. The social equation is a lot more intricate than simply “I’m paying more taxes than that guy! It’s not fair!” and to reduce it to an exercise in petulant footstamping is not constructive and ignores the bigger picture.
But if it makes you feel better, don’t let us stop you.
But that’s hardly %50 of America. Do you seriously believe that 50% of America is jobless and on welfare? Those who pay no federal income tax but still work still pay almost %20 of their income in payroll and sales taxes and other fees. ETA especially when you consider that they don’t get homeowner benefits but mostly rather rent, and thus get a virtual property tax since their landlord pays property tax which then gets passed to them, which homeowners don’t have to pay.
A good number of those who pay no income tax are retired and on Social Security. Now, whatever the merits of that program are, the benefits they get from that have been earned and paid for long ago – if they hadn’t, the program would have gone broke long ago.
A good number of the rest are people who are collecting unemployment benefits. Many but not all of THOSE paid far more into that system than they have collected so far.
This is something which has irked me ever since I’ve heard this “50%” figure being bandied about. What I don’t understand is in what universe are “payroll” taxes NOT “income” taxes? I believe you have the option of not having the weekly deductions taken out of your pay and dealing with them on April instead (correct me if I’m wrong). In either case the federal government is going to get their cut one way or another, so ultimately the distinction is nonexistent, right?
Meaningless semantic redefinitions are the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Well, what’s the welfare recipient’s “fair share” of taxes?
Is the “fair share” the same amount as me, who’s earning several times as much?
Is the “fair share” the same fraction of gross income (or welfare benefits)?
Is the “fair share” the same fraction of disposable income (or welfare benefits) after paying for humane housing, decently nutritional - but not luxurious - food, health costs and schooling for their children?
Or is the “fair share” another amount of money?
Seriously, I for one won’t even try to answer that question. I’m really looking forward to having my ignorance fought by you, who apparently is rather obsessed by “fairness”.
On a similar note, is it “fair” that I grew up in a middle class home with stable parents who helped me with my schooling and made it possible for me to get a good education, while one of my classmates in primary school grew up in a poor family with no paternal role model and no moral or economic support at home, never had the same chances of doing well in life as I’ve had and just had been released from one of his many jail sentences the last time I met him several years ago?
ETA tl/dr version: Life ain’t fair. Grow up and accept it.
That statement is false. That statistics has been kicking around for a while and my bullshit alarm went off so I went and hunt down for the source. I couldn’t dig up the sources right now but the report said around 50% tax “units” don’t pay federal tax. A married couple with kid counts as 1 unit, guy taking care of his elderly parent counts as 1 unit. I will post the original source as I find it but below is a break down by Washington post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/politics/tax-reality-check/notax.html
“Fairness” aside - you are hopefully aware that the federal income tax is not the only tax individuals pay. Those individuals who do not pay federal income tax do pay other federal taxes.
You’re right, it is not fair. People from Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, and a host of other states pay too much taxes while states like North Dakota and Arkansas take in far more in benefits than they pay out.