Whenever people get uppity about taxes, or start yelling about Marxism and Socialism, I tend to trot out my simple maxim:
“Taxes are the commission that you pay for having this entire infrastructure in which you can make all that money in the first place. You’re paying for the safe civilization that you live and operate in, and you’re paying for the government that regulates and otherwise maintains that infrastructure that you use to make money. It’s that simple. If you want to use this country and its socioeconomic system to make money for yourself, you have to pay your commission.”
I feel that this essentially sums up the whole argument.
I think you can include “defense”, roads and infrastructure, foreign aid, etc. in the above statement, so, sure. Or, would you care to educate us on where **most **of it goes?
And from this point of view, it makes plenty of sense for those with more to pay more taxes-they benefit much much more than people like you or I from being in a country where property ownership and acquisition is safe, reliable, and protected by the government.
I agree; it’s like that ‘Ten guys drink beer together and the bottom four don’t pay anything and the top guy pays half, etc.’
I call bullshit.
Those bottom four guys’ kids are serving in Iraq, the middle five keep the bridges up and the cops on the streets; the top three make money in the stock market and the top guy manipulates the whole thing so that he sucks off of the bottom sevens’ pensions.
Your argument is fallacious. You’re assuming that more taxes = better government.
Certainly the government needs as much money as it needs to do its job, but the goal should be in seeing to it that it is not using significantly more than that.
If you think that the government is bloated, cutting taxes is a way of forcing them to cut back on waste.
Why? If there is waste it’s because of one of three things: incompetence, pandering for votes, or corruption. In any of those case cutting taxes is just as likely to cause “good” things to be cut and wasteful things to continue.
No it’s not. We’ve seen repeatedly that it is quite possibly to increase government spending even when taxes are cut. The only way to cut back on waste under our system is through political action (ie-coordinated pressure on the legislature).
Unless you are thinking about state governments which have balanced budget requirements.
I agree with the OP’s premise that we pay a “commission” for the government to handle many things for us. I think most of us, including the “rich” pay our fair share of taxes despite what pundits say. I have compassion for those who cannot work, but not for those who won’t work, but expect the rest of us to support them.