to one quarter of one’s income?
I read that a majority of Americans believe that no one should pay more than 25 % in taxes. So how about an Amendment?
Why stop there? Why not 10%, or 5, or better yet, how about an amendment to completely ban all forms of taxation. After all, nobody likes having to pay money for things.
The proper tax rate isn’t whatever a poll determines it to be. It’s what brings in enough money to pay for the government services the people demand. Currently, we are taxed too little, not too much. Until people decide to stop voting for politicians who spend large amounts of money, that’s going to continue.
Okay, laigle, I have a solution for that. We will simply pass constitutional amendments that specify that 0.3% of revenues will go to roadbuilding, 0.02% to broadband for everyone, 2% to research, 5% to Hentor the Barbarian…
Why would we want an amendment to lower taxes when right now we are not being taxed enough?
Social Security (I know it comes from a seperate tax) is in danger of becoming insolvant in a few decades, we don’t spend enough money for even the most rudimentary elementary education, 40% of Americans don’t have health insurance, we’re spending tens upon tens of billions of dollars that haven’t been budgeted for on a war we shouldn’t even be in, we are having to spend more and more every year on domestic security and law enforcement. Our national debt is huge and growing rapidly. Oh yes, and Bush wants to go to Mars.
On top of that, the average age of Americans is going up and people are living longer-- needing more services and care. And we’re losing more and more jobs overseas leaving the unemployed less chance to be employed any time soon leading to (1) less income tax collected, and (2) a need for more unemployment benefits.
Do you think all of this means we need more revenue or less revenue? And you want to LOWER taxes??!?
How do you think we can pay for all this? Or are you so selfish that you don’t care and choose to leave all this debt to your grand-children?
What’s your plan? Sell naming rights? “The Pepsi-Cola United States of America”?
We desperately need higher income taxes, but politicians won’t dare try it because of the slack-jawed, knuckle-dragging chuckleheads so busy thinking about themselves.
It’s wrong to say that we’re not being taxed enough. Maybe there’s too much spending. I don’t think there is too much spending, but there are two sides to this coin.
Here’s the reason that I think such an amendment is a bad idea. It’d be like trying to squeeze jello. Grab in one place, it squirts out another. Cut back on income taxes, user fees are increased. I, for one, think it’s better to pay more in income tax than have more toll roads, higher fares on public transportation, higher tuitions at public universities, and so on. To say nothing of more excise taxes, property taxes, and so on.
I know libertarians disagree with me, but I think a reliance on user fees are an awfully bad way to finance a government, because it is less fair to poorer people. Good roads, good schools, good national defense, and good healthcare systems are a benefit to all Americans, not just those that need to use them. They should be paid for by all Americans.
Since the problem with an amendment limiting taxes is that it bears no relation to government spending, why not have an amendment banning deficit budgeting? If the government wants to spend money it doesn’t get in tax revenue (such as for an ill-advised foreign adventure), it has to raise the money in other ways: bond issues, say.
Since deficit budgeting is key, on some theories, to stimulating the economy when it’s poor (and when tax revenue is lowered), include a rainy day clause that the government must set aside X% dollars per year in a heritage fund depending on some agreed upon economic variable that’s periodically re-evaluated.
Ha! We already have something like that in California. It’s called Proposition 13 which limits property taxes and was passed 30 some odd years ago. While this proposition allows someone like Warren Buffet to pay only $2000 tax on his $4 million Malibu house, it has decimated the state of CA. This proposition has also contributed to the huge increases in the value of CA real estate. But the revenue that was lost had to be made up somehow and that was done via all kinds of fee increases, sales tax increases, income tax increases and a flattening of the rate curve and a variety of other tricks to gain operating revenue. And it hasn’t been enough. CA is falling apart economically and infrastructure wise.
Putting a limit on taxes is not the solution. What I do favor is eliminating most of the deductions and loopholes from the tax code and settling on some sort of progressive tax rates for everyone. Now, let’s no go off the deep end on this. With the tax code cleaned up and most deductions/loopholes eliminated, I’m thinking that depending on income, tax rates could range from say 0-15% with the average being around 8%.
However, the probability of the tax code being cleaned up is about as close to zero as one can get. There are too many special interests benefiting from the tax code and they will fight to the end to protect their special interests, regardless of whether the changes would be good for the big picture.
As I said, we spend as much as the duly elected representatives of the public decide we shoudl spend. And the ones who spend the most on their districts are the ones who are going to be the duly re-elected representatives of the public. The spending level did not fall out of the sky, it is the direct result of the decisions of the voting public. Now the voting public is just going to have to ante up to cover their tab.
I disagree with your contention that we’re not being taxed enough as well as the accusations that I must be selfish to believe that lowering taxes would be a good thing. You don’t know me. You are out of line speculating on where I stand on the generosity/selfishness continuum. And you happened to have guessed wrong.
Actually the most selfish people I have come across have been people who are dependent on government handouts. The worst have been government employees who feel entitled to pensions for life after 20 years of work.
There are reasons for good people to believe that lower taxation is the best thing for the general welfare. I don’t want to get into it now as that wasn’t the intent of the OP. But suffice it to say that one might look at the results of heavy taxation in countries like the USSR or NK and then look at the unintended consequences and then conclude that the best thing for poor folks is minimal government presence in our lives. I’ll start another thread in a few days called “Smaller governement = greater wealth” in case anyone wants to debate it.
Getting back to the OP. If it’s true that most Americans feel that we shouldn’t be taxed more than 25% I’d like to hear from some of that silent majority on their thoughts about an Amendment as a way to achieve that goal.
Thanks for all the responses so far.
I don’t necessarily agree with the OP, but your reasoning is incorrect on this issue. Suppose we didn’t have a Free Speach Amendment. Suppose Congress passed legislation severely limitting free speach. Would you argue that we didn’t need an amendment to ensure free speach?
The whole point of the constitution is to put limits on what government can and cannot do. You are essentially arguing that we don’t need a constitution.
Having said that, I would rather see an amendment limitting spending to some % of GDP rather than a direct limit on taxes. But we’ll never get either one, so it’s really a moot discussion.
Piffle. Free speech is a protected right because it is a precursor to a free society, and our constitution seeks to establish just that. Spending more money than we take in isn’t a basic principle of good government.
I would very much favor a balanced budget amendment, but the idea that we should just pick a number out of a hat for taxation and set a constitutional limit there is absurd. The correct tax level is the level needed to cover our expenses. If we want the government to spend lots of money (and election results prove time and again that we do) then we have to have lots of taxes.
Getting rid of deficit spending? That is insane. In modern (Keynesian) economics, the government sometimes relies on going into debt at certain points to boost spending. Banning such spending would render a government with little income almost powerless against the markets - not to mention what would happen in an emergency situation. It would cripple us.
Taxation and economics are not something to be lightly played with on the basis of “rights” and “fairness.” The real problem is that, as said, people expect a lot for nothing. In any case, the jello analogy is the most accurate - try to cap tax in one area, and it slushes to another area.
Your reasoning is still flawed. There are plenty of things in the constitution that aren’t about fundamental rights in a free society, but simply how we choose to structure the government. Limitting taxation would be no more unusual than limitting the number of terms a president can serve.
As for spending more money than we take in, that has nothing to do with whether or not we limit taxes. There could easily be an amendment as proposed by the OP, and we could still have deficit spending. In fact, I would argue that it would likely cause more defict spending.
The worst have been government employees who feel entitled to pensions for life after 20 years of work.
This really annoys the hell out of me. Do you KNOW any government employees? Are you talking federal, state, county or city?
I am a federal employee. Do you know the minimum I need to work to retire? 37 freakin’ years. Do you also know that (at least those of us who started in '84 and after) don’t just get a pension. We fall under FERS (Federal Employee Rip-Off System…oh, um I mean Federal Employee Retirement System). We also pay into the TSP where the supposed board makes investments for us into various stock funds or government funds. We have no say in which stocks are invested in. In other words, I can’t say put X amount in Microsoft and X amount in Dell (not good examples, but an example to get the point across).
So, although many employees may work the minimum amount of years we probably won’t be able to afford retirement, because like private sector employees, we have watched our retirement accounts dwindle to nothing. I know that I probably won’t be able to retire until I have worked at least 45 years. Is this enough freakin’ time for you?
As to taxes, there is no easy answer and a constitutional amendment isn’t the answer either. We have to pay for our services, and being citizen means taking care of those who can’t take of themselves. Some day YOU may need one of those services.
Sorry, the last thing I want to do is to any kind of flaming. If I hurt you in any way I apologize.
Yes, many.
City, mostly. Those are the ones I come into contact with the most. As I said above the ones who annoy me are the ones who act entitled to generous pensions that the rest of us will have to pay for. I know of one librarian who works for a rural county and earns a pittance and gets no pension. I have no bad feelings towards her and others like her.
As I mentioned above, I’m a libertarian, so I’m especially sensitive to and receptive to complaints of people being treated unfairly by governments. Sounds like you have a bad deal there and I genuinely feel sorry for you. You’ll get no argumant from me on any of the above.
No doubt there’s a greater than zero chance that I may some day look to others for help. If that day happens I’d like to be living a a country where the government is small, meaning prosperity will be great and private charity will do a much better job of helping those in need.
That would be fantastic if technology didn’t change.
When the amendment on income tax was being considered a limit of 10% was also considered. It was defeated on the bases that once a limit was set then taxiation would automatically increase to that limit.
I think such an amendment would be defeated based on a possible need in the future due to war or natual disaster.
Why not just revive the balanced budget amendment?
Because the balanced budget is a warm and fuzzy idea, but has very little practical basis, among other things, in severely restricting the government’s control over the economy and emergency situations? For two, it has a nice little loophole about being engaged in military conflict, that makes it all but useless in the face of our current future.
Zagadka, what’s the story behind that quote on bottom of your posts?