# Why are Americans so opposed to tax increases? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2011, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733 "2011-08-06T15:00:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/41 "2011-08-06T21:11:48Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > I would support tax hikes if they were dedicated to paying down the deficit exclusively. I think most anti-tax people would as well. Then you should support the revoking of the Bush Tax Cuts. Because there is no way increased spending would get through this congress. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/42 "2011-08-06T21:15:00Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Then you should support the revoking of the Bush Tax Cuts. Because there is no way increased spending would get through this congress. I would absolutely support that, along with hikes in capital gains, as long as it’s dedicated to paying down the deficit exclusively. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/43 "2011-08-06T22:12:50Z")
> [@Lobohan](#): > > Then you should support the revoking of the Bush Tax Cuts. Because there is no way increased spending would get through this congress. I’ve watched taxes climb in my state and jobs leave the state. So no, I would not support the tax hikes because they chase jobs away. If you want more tax revenue, then keep taxes lower AND legislate to encourage business AND increase the mining of our own oil and natural resources AND reduce the debt so we can spend what we take in instead of using it to pay off past mistakes. The reason the Tea Party came into being is in the news we see on a daily basis: Greece and other countries on the brink of collapse, our own credit rating falling and and no end in sight for any of it. The bill that was just passed had no short term reductions in debt and left open future reversal of what was a token reduction. Tax rates are not a linear method of increasing tax revenue. And the tax rate does nothing to address the problem of unbalanced budgets. The solution to unbalanced budgets is to BALANCE them. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/44 "2011-08-06T22:23:12Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > I’ve watched taxes climb in my state and jobs leave the state. So no, I would not support the tax hikes because they chase jobs away. If you want more tax revenue, then keep taxes lower AND legislate to encourage business AND increase the mining of our own oil and natural resources AND reduce the debt so we can spend what we take in instead of using it to pay off past mistakes. > > The reason the Tea Party came into being is in the news we see on a daily basis: Greece and other countries on the brink of collapse, our own credit rating falling and and no end in sight for any of it. The bill that was just passed had no short term reductions in debt and left open future reversal of what was a token reduction. > > Tax rates are not a linear method of increasing tax revenue. And the tax rate does nothing to address the problem of unbalanced budgets. The solution to unbalanced budgets is to BALANCE them. Strange. Most states give businesses tax abatements for moving in. That way we middle class people can pay their taxes for them. Sure, lets balance the budget. that would require raising taxes and closing loopholes. i am for that too. End tax breaks for offshoring work. Stop tax shelters that only benefit the chosen ones. I am glad we can agree on how to fix the problem. We all know cutting will not do the job. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/45 "2011-08-06T22:32:17Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > Strange. Most states give businesses tax abatements for moving in. That way we middle class people can pay their taxes for them. > Sure, lets balance the budget. that would require raising taxes and closing loopholes. i am for that too. End tax breaks for offshoring work. Stop tax shelters that only benefit the chosen ones. I am glad we can agree on how to fix the problem. We all know cutting will not do the job. tax abatements are short term incentives to lure businesses in. And I don’t think it’s states, I think it’s local municipalities that give abatements. I disagree that cutting would not do the job. I’d eliminate all income tax on businesses and shift it to payroll taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/46 "2011-08-06T22:46:35Z")
There are a variety of reasons I can think of: Even though we don’t like to admit it, we are a nation with a lot of racial/class divisions. And ‘increasing taxes’ i usually seen as code for ‘taking money away from hard working white people and giving it to blacks and latino immigrants who didn’t earn it’. So there is that. In fact, that is a major reason we don’t have universal health care. It was considered in the 40s, but southern democrats opposed it since they feared it would lead to integrated hospitals (according to Paul Krugman). You’d be surprised how much issues like ‘free public education and health care for mexican immigrants’ or ‘prisons and welfare for blacks’ comes up in anti-tax circles. Most of us have no idea what we get for our taxes, so it is easy to say it is wasted. Things like public education (which costs over a trillion a year), military, police, etc. fade into the background. Programs like medicare & SS apply when you are older. I recently saw on Bill Maher he quoted a poll that claimed 40% of people on medicare say they do not get any government services. People that old get both medicare and social security. So we’ve learned to not notice the benefits of the public sector. Even when we get government services in exchange for our taxes, we are so ill informed that we aren’t even aware of it. Maybe we are just ‘spoiled’. We’ve been told we shouldn’t have to pay taxes for so long we’ve come to belive it. If people were constantly telling me I didn’t have to pay rent, I’m guessing sooner or later I might believe it to be an unnecessary expense too. I’m guessing we are more individualistic and less collective here. FWIW, I think most americans who aren’t rabidly partisan are ok with paying higher taxes just as long as the burden is shared and we see something in exchange for the taxes. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/47 "2011-08-06T23:06:24Z")
> [@Sateryn76](#): > > I would support tax hikes if they were dedicated to paying down the deficit exclusively. I think most anti-tax people would as well. I agree. I would go for that as well and that is the ultimate example of not getting anything for increased taxes other than peace of mind for future stability. I would love to have a special tax that is for nothing but debt reduction and itemized as such. It should have no other benefits associated with it. A lot of us fiscal conservatives really are sincere and always have been even when we have been accused of just being narrow minded or unfair. It really is as simple as managing money well over the long term being the boom or death of a nation. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/48 "2011-08-06T23:24:32Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Tax rates are not a linear method of increasing tax revenue. And the tax rate does nothing to address the problem of unbalanced budgets. The solution to unbalanced budgets is to BALANCE them. No one said they were linear. In fact not only can they be restrictive at high levels but at low levels they can multiply the economy by enabling effective security, safety, and transportation. Of course the tax rate addresses balanced budgets. In the past 30 years, taxes go up, deficits go down, it _is_ as simple as that, despite all the counterintuitive handwaving by the ultra tax phobic. This firmly demonstrates that we are not in a revenue-restrictive tax bracket. When the taxes were slashed in the early 2000s, it was promised that the rich would use their windfall to invest and create jobs. They have their trillions in bankroll: where are the jobs? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/49 "2011-08-06T23:45:06Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > I would love to have a special tax that is for nothing but debt reduction and itemized as such. Unfortunately such a thing is impossible, as you could simply create a new expenditure that takes the money out as fast as the tax puts it in. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 6, 2011, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/50 "2011-08-06T23:47:24Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > It was obviously a rhetorical statement. Are you under the impression that there isn’t government waste that could be corrected? The thing is, what average people consider “waste” translates pretty readily to “whatever doesn’t personally benefit me” and “stuff that I dismiss as unimportant because it’s outside my understanding” like “owl vomit studies” or we can recall Bobby Jindal’s incredulous scoffing at “volcano research” from his SOTU response a couple of years ago. But it’s much more difficult to justify that response when the budget it taken as a whole, and the justification process for funding scientific studies, for example, is actually understood. And of course there’s the question of balancing values. There’s a not small contingent of people in this country, taxpayers and legislators alike, who believe that any spending on K-12 education is wasteful and would like to see public schools and all public funding of education on any level abolished. There are people who feel that putting any additional money into military action in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Libya is wasteful and want to see military spending slashed drastically. Right now, almost the entire freshman class of the House of Representatives believes Medicare is a waste and they’re going to move forward with a bill to abolish it and throw seniors to the vagaries of private insurers, even though it won’t pass the Senate and would be vetoed if it did. So whose definition of “waste” holds? We can say that whoever wins elections gets to choose, but the problem with that is that despite holding the position, none of those freshman GOP congresscritters ran on a “Medicare must be abolished” platform, even though many are Tea Party favorites who proclaim, in broad stripes, that all federal spending must be decimated. > [@Magiver](#): > > I’ve watched taxes climb in my state and jobs leave the state. So no, I would not support the tax hikes because they chase jobs away. That would be a legitimate position to take if you could actually demonstrate a _causal_ connection between higher state taxes and a loss of jobs, especially if you’re talking about job losses during the recent recession, when it was not in any way a localized phenomenon. > [@](#): > > If you want more tax revenue, then keep taxes lower AND legislate to encourage business AND increase the mining of our own oil and natural resources Because more mining will increase tax revenues, how, exactly, when the companies that ultimately profit haven’t been paying their fair share for decades? > [@](#): > > AND reduce the debt so we can spend what we take in instead of using it to pay off past mistakes. Would you like a pony too? The last time we had a balanced budget and a national surplus and deficit reduction, we had higher taxes. (Which occurred under Bill Clinton, btw.) That’s just the long and short of it. We cut taxes dramatically and revenue fell at a time when we increased spending dramatically and there went the debt and the deficit again, climbing ever upward. Basic reality says that you don’t just stop paying your bills, you find a way to increase your income as well. Closing corporate tax loopholes and expiring the Bush tax cuts is the fastest, easiest and _fairest_ means of significantly increasing revenues but the Cult of Grover Norquist has too many of us believing that it’s tantamount to mortal sin to do so, with no valid explanation, only a reflexive religious belief. > [@](#): > > The reason the Tea Party came into being is in the news we see on a daily basis: Greece and other countries on the brink of collapse, our own credit rating falling and and no end in sight for any of it. The reason that the Tea Party came into being is because corporate political interests on the Right fomented a fake grassroots movement using a “news” network that traffics in misinformation and outright lies to dupe low-information voters into believing that we were on the verge of actual rather than man-made crisis. The Tea Party is not, never has been, and never will be a popular uprising of people who understand jack crap about fiscal policy, economics or the federal budget. The Tea Party’s opinions on these subjects are about as relevant as your average third grader’s, but because of the massive amount of money behind this faux movement, they get media play, and hence get a seat at the table. That’s it. When can we get honest and stop pretending that the Tea Party is anything other than Dick Armey and the Koch Brothers using sadly average Americans to do their dirty work? > [@](#): > > The bill that was just passed had no short term reductions in debt and left open future reversal of what was a token reduction. Because the Republicans _refuse_, as a matter of their Norquistian religion, to allow any discussion of new revenue or a reduction of the single largest aspect of the federal budget, which is defense. When you come to the table and say “we’re in debt, but we can’t bring in more money and we can’t cut back the highest cost item in our budget because… because… because… because we say so!” not only are you not negotiating in good faith, whatever result comes from that negotiation is going to be so hamstrung as to be near ineffective. And let us be perfectly honest about one other thing. One rating company has lowered the US credit rating for the first time and they were _explicitly_ clear that it was the uncertainty of the GOP manufactured crisis surrounding the debt ceiling issue that led to the downgrade, and that new revenue, beginning with the expiration of Bush era tax cuts is the first step toward gaining our AAA back. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/51 "2011-08-07T06:49:00Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > The thing is, what average people consider “waste” translates pretty readily to “whatever doesn’t personally benefit me” No, waste is pretty obvious when seen from any angle. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > And of course there’s the question of balancing values. There’s a not small contingent of people in this country, taxpayers and legislators alike, who believe that any spending on K-12 education is wasteful and would like to see public schools and all public funding of education on any level abolished. Nobody wants public schools to vanish. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > There are people who feel that putting any additional money into military action in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Libya is wasteful and want to see military spending slashed drastically. Right now, almost the entire freshman class of the House of Representatives believes Medicare is a waste and they’re going to move forward with a bill to abolish it and throw seniors to the vagaries of private insurers, even though it won’t pass the Senate and would be vetoed if it did. > That would be a legitimate position to take if you could actually demonstrate a _causal_ connection between higher state taxes and a loss of jobs, especially if you’re talking about job losses during the recent recession, when it was not in any way a localized phenomenon. Taxes went up, businesses moved out. Make of it what you will. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > Because more mining will increase tax revenues, how, exactly… taxes from profits. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > We cut taxes dramatically and revenue fell at a time when we increased spending dramatically and there went the debt and the deficit again, climbing ever upward. Basic reality says that you don’t just stop paying your bills, you find a way to increase your income as well. Closing corporate tax loopholes and expiring the Bush tax cuts is the fastest, easiest and _fairest_ means of significantly increasing revenues but the Cult of Grover Norquist has too many of us believing that it’s tantamount to mortal sin to do so, with no valid explanation, only a reflexive religious belief. Spending increased dramatically. That’s the problem. Spending more than taken in. It’s really that simple. Don’t spend what you don’t have. There is non hidden agenda or complicated math involved. If X amount of money comes in then spend .90X and save for a rainy day. Spending more then X automatically reduces the money available next time because the debt is paid first. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > The reason that the Tea Party came into being is because corporate political interests on the Right fomented a fake grassroots movement using a “news” network that traffics in misinformation and outright lies to dupe low-information voters into believing that we were on the verge of actual rather than man-made crisis. The Tea Party is not, never has been, and never will be a popular uprising of people who understand jack crap about fiscal policy, economics or the federal budget. The Tea Party’s opinions on these subjects are about as relevant as your average third grader’s, but because of the massive amount of money behind this faux movement, they get media play, and hence get a seat at the table. That’s it. This is just John Kerry hyperbole. The man can’t even pay his own taxes without the public humiliating him into it. moving on. > [@tumbleddown](#): > > When can we get honest and stop pretending that the Tea Party is anything other than Dick Armey and the Koch Brothers using sadly average Americans to do their dirty work? > > Really? You’re demonizing the public for demanding the unpardonable sin of a balanced budget and trying to make this about corporate evilness? Really? Come the next election more heads will roll because of the last vote and the gross incompetence of those in office. > Because the Republicans _refuse_, as a matter of their Norquistian religion, to allow any discussion of new revenue or a reduction of the single largest aspect of the federal budget, which is defense. When you come to the table and say “we’re in debt, but we can’t bring in more money and we can’t cut back the highest cost item in our budget because… because… because… because we say so!” not only are you not negotiating in good faith, whatever result comes from that negotiation is going to be so hamstrung as to be near ineffective. > > And let us be perfectly honest about one other thing. One rating company has lowered the US credit rating for the first time and they were _explicitly_ clear that it was the uncertainty of the GOP manufactured crisis surrounding the debt ceiling issue that led to the downgrade, and that new revenue, beginning with the expiration of Bush era tax cuts is the first step toward gaining our AAA back. yah, everything is just rosy and S&P is evil. You conveniently ignore Moody assigning a negative outlook because the long term fiscal problems have not been addressed. If nothing changes then they will downgrade their rating. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/52 "2011-08-07T15:03:31Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > Nobody wants public schools to vanish. I don’t think that’s true. Two random examples: A [recent article](http://thenewamerican.com/opinion/sam-blumenfeld/7366-should-the-public-schools-be-privatized) on how public schools will lead us to atheism and socialism, and we should do away with them. [Milton Friedman / Cato Institute, 1995](http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-023.html) on how the system needs an overhaul, with vouchers for private schools. (Vouchers do seem to be more common that having the public schools just vanish.) ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/53 "2011-08-07T15:06:56Z")
> [@Magiver](#): > > tax abatements are short term incentives to lure businesses in. And I don’t think it’s states, I think it’s local municipalities that give abatements. > > I disagree that cutting would not do the job. I’d eliminate all income tax on businesses and shift it to payroll taxes. Those are still taxes and the citizens have to support the company’s infrastructure. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/54 "2011-08-07T21:03:58Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Unfortunately such a thing is impossible, as you could simply create a new expenditure that takes the money out as fast as the tax puts it in. That would be the beauty of it. It wouldn’t be a fixed amount. It would be variable like a minimum payment due on a credit card except geared to actually pay it off in a reasonable time. Every time there is a budget overrun, the bill is itemized among all Americans as an additional flat percentage tax and added to tax returns at the end for everyone to see. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/55 "2011-08-07T21:19:58Z")
Our taxes are at the lowest level in 60 years. Yet some people are still too stupid to figure it out and claim they are too high. You can not convince people who can be trained with slogans instead of information. Is there government waste?Has there ever been a billion dollar agency that doesn’t have some? Is there a corporation that does not have waste? Is there waste in the military contractors? If you can do something about waste, you should. But claiming waste is the reason the government is bad is just ignorant. but this is America. You say something simple long enough and loud enough, it gets ingrained in our simple little tea bagger minds. Then they run around repeating it like it is some huge revelation. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/56 "2011-08-07T21:23:07Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > 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. That’s a damn fine post. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/57 "2011-08-07T21:55:53Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > That’s a damn fine post. But horribly wrong. We had the deficits under control back in Clinton’s time. That was not so long ago.Bush cut taxes and started 2 wars off the books. Then Bush did a drug program that was a huge giveaway to the companies. There is nothing intrinsically bad about the government. we have brought the deficits under control before. if we get the Repubs out of the way, we can do it again. It will not be done by cutting taxes . It will not be done by cutting programs alone. It has to have revenue and eliminating tax loopholes. But tea bagger slogans will not do a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/58 "2011-08-07T22:27:02Z")
> [@gonzomax](#): > > But horribly wrong. We had the deficits under control back in Clinton’s time. That was not so long ago.Bush cut taxes and started 2 wars off the books. Then Bush did a drug program that was a huge giveaway to the companies. There is nothing intrinsically bad about the government. we have brought the deficits under control before. if we get the Repubs out of the way, we can do it again. It will not be done by cutting taxes . It will not be done by cutting programs alone. It has to have revenue and eliminating tax loopholes. > But tea bagger slogans will not do a thing. Forget the teabaggers, are you opposed to tying new taxes in the future with specific goals and demanding realistic budgeting? After all the the egghead economic talk dies down, it is still about spending about what you take in and achieving what you stated up front. When the money is gone, we (collectively) have to stop. That is just project management 101 no matter how grand the scale and common sense as well. ---
**Author:** ![fumster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e9c0ed/32.png) [@fumster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fumster)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/59 "2011-08-08T05:43:31Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Forget the teabaggers, are you opposed to tying new taxes in the future with specific goals and demanding realistic budgeting? After all the the egghead economic talk dies down, it is still about spending about what you take in and achieving what you stated up front. When the money is gone, we (collectively) have to stop. That is just project management 101 no matter how grand the scale and common sense as well. And just why is it about spending the money we take in and not taking in the money we spend? Budgets have two components: the funding and the expenditures. It is not prudent to always just spend less money. If that were true none of us would buy houses, no new factories would be built, and none of our infrastructure of roads and dams would be in place. A _realistic budget_ is one which directs funds towards those tasks with the best return. We can look at things like the internet and see the returns from our investments in ARPA/DARPA. Silicon Valley did not spring up just anyplace, it was in a state which saw the need for an excellent public educational system. This, combined with premier private Universities like Stanford that received research grants from the Federal government, and military spending in the aerospace industries created an economic powerhouse that made California by itself one of the largest economies in the world. Is there waste, fraud, and abuse? I’m sure there is, just as there is in the private sector. I have news for you: liberals are opposed to waste too. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2011, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733/60 "2011-08-08T05:58:44Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > 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. Irrelevant aside: not in Quebec at least, or at least not for the way I have my taxes set up (not sure if it’s different for others). I have to cut separate cheques (when I don’t have a nice little tax credit coming my way from one or another level of government). > [@Ludovic](#): > > Are you under the impression that correcting government waste will eliminate the deficit? Something like this in microcosm is going on in Toronto right now. The mayor was basically elected on a platform of eliminating the mountains of owl vomit studies he was certain were taking place, and thereby eliminating any deficit and being able to lower taxes. Problem is, he’s now finding there isn’t much in the way of owl vomit left, so he’s left demonizing things like libraries and night buses, to which the citizens find themselves stubbornly attached. In addition to all of the foregoing, we’re now in the situation where the dominant budgetary ideology basically says that when times are good, we can afford to cut taxes, and when times are bad, we have to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes. When the response is the same to opposite set of circumstances, something’s not right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-americans-so-opposed-to-tax-increases/591733.md?page=4)