Regards,

Shogun

I pay up to 50% in income tax (highest scale part of my income), for example. I do feel I get enough back from my government (roads, public transport, fire dept, police dept, jails, free health care, state pension, unemployment if I would need it.

@katy: you don’t have to pay taxes for other people’s kids, you need to repay society for your own education. Do you think that everyone who was against the Iraq war shouldn’t be paying for the army, either?

Educating children in the United States whether they are yours or not is not just about “your kids”. The goal of the government is that 18 years later it has healthy, educated, well informed citizens who will work toward it’s betterment, fight in it’s armed forces, pay taxes towards it’s continued betterment.

That’s why education and healthcare are such important topics to any government. The better educated your citizens are (usually) the higher the tax base. The higher the tax base, the better the services that can be offered. The better health your citizens are in, the longer and more fully they can continue to work. (They also cost less). In WWII when the the military desperately needed recruits, it discovered that most of it’s recruits were horribly underfed, and many were in bad health. I believe that food stamps, welfare, etc. are a direct result of the US goverment realizing when it needed to mobilize it’s citizens the most, it did not receive the quality of armed forces it needed.

The states responsibility to it’s citiziens is found in our standing military (not military complex) the FDA, the DOT, the Justice System, Medicaid, Medicare, Welfare, food stamps.

Mike #173 – actually in the United States the government does fix the roads and highways. The Department of Transportation is loved and hated by us all.

Finally I want to comment on something that makes me cringe whenever it is mentioned.

The United States is not a democracy, it is representative republic. We elect our local, state and federal officials so that they might take our feedback, think, relect, debate and then vote the best they can for the citizens of their ward/county/city/state.

I I object to your characterization of *my* argument as stating that “the government has a monoploy on malevolence and corruption and that the free market can cure everything”. You can certainly exagerrate what I’m saying (or pull from others’ posts) in order to ignore my point, but know that you’re taking the easy way out here.

Additionally, while the private sector is not *always* more efficent than government, it certainly has a more powerful incentive to be efficient than government does. And even if “turning everything over to private sector” *wouldn’t* *guarantee* “increased efficiency”, it most certainly *would* guarantee “a distribution of monies that reflects a superior representation of public will” since each individual would be following his own will rather than a government mandate.

Finally, I would love to see your resource for the following facts you’ve stated. I’m not being catty here, I would genuinely appreciate knowing where you’re getting this info.

“Charitable giving as percentage of GDP has hovered around 2%”

“Medicare is run with less administrative waste than even non profit health insurers.”

Respectfully,

Joanna

We don’t need to run an experiment, we already have plenty of objective evidence. It’s all right there in our history. Charitable giving as percentage of GDP has hovered around 2% even after Reagan and Bush tax cuts. Our reasons for enacting social security is testament to the necessity of a government mandate.

You and I don’t disagree about the nature of human beings, I object to the narrative that the government has a monoploy on malevolence and corruption and that the free market can cure everything.

We’ve all accepted that capitalism beats communism. Centrally planned economies make painfully obvious the inefficiencies and shortcomings of government. Of course we all need to be wary of that, but let’s not throw the baby out with bath water. After you take out defense, 55% of government spending is Medicare and Social Security. These programs are essential to take care of our elderly population. People would have start giving over 12% of their income to charity to make up for that. Now I agree the richer people feel, the more they give, but would would it increase six-fold? No. Unfortunately, there are folks (not the majority) out there who give zero to charity. It’s not that they can’t afford it. Either they don’t want to or can’t live within their means. An increase in disposable income won’t change that.

Even if they did, it’s not as if turning everything over to private sector guarantees increased efficiency and a distribution of monies that reflects a superior representation of public will. Medicare is run with less administrative waste than even non profit health insurers. Social Security would be logistically impossible to administer without a central control.
Even in the era of greater information and watchdog resources like Charity Navigator, plenty of charities are disgustingly inefficient and corrupt.

We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. Personally, I don’t think either side really has any true evidence since we can hardly do an experiment to see what does happen when you dramatically decrease taxes. In the absence of objective evidence, I personally believe it comes down to what you really think of people deep down. In other words, it’s not a matter of naiveté v. worldly knowledge, but rather a matter of where your heart is. I personally give much more than 2% and would most certainly increase my giving if my tax burden were lessened. Obviously I understand that not everyone is the same, but I believe that the majority of people want to help others. There are SO many examples of this mentality in our country. (THe food bank is actually a great one! It’s an organization formed outside of government, as a not-for-profit, with the sole objective of feeding the hungry.) The idea that the only way we can help other people is by forcing everyone to pay increasingly high taxes, then letting our benevolent, efficient & non-corrupt government funnel it to the people who truly need it is, in my opinion, what’s truly naive. Taxes, once they have surpassed basic services that have historically been the responsibility of government (e.g. infrastructure, national defense, security), are less about true benevolence & more about control. This mentality is even apparent in some of the comments we’ve seen here from people who want to pay more taxes but instead of voluntarily contributing more to the government in a show of support & allowing their good actions to influence their friends / family & spread virally, they want a mandate that will force everyone to share the same actions if not the same belief.

That is: the public schools (my son isn’t even old enough for school yet), the public libraries (on top of volunteer work), and the public parks.

That said: it only works if EVERYONE does it. That’s why we’re talking about taxes and not tithing to your church.

But the truth is in the numbers, because no matter what spending program you may count as being worthy of public support, the ability to fund it isn’t and can’t be open ended. In our culture we pretend that it is, and the size of the deficits give testimony to that belief.

Taxes becomes more an argument of “this is what I believe” rather than “this is what I will do” or a study on the reality of the situation.

The same economies of scale are true of direct social services, like the WIC program, but I haven’t worked with those programs much so I can’t speak very knowledgeably about them.

The most efficient food program I’ve ever worked with was Food Not Bombs, which takes dumpstered and donated food and cooks it (by volunteers) and serves it for free…but FNB never gets the level of clientele that the big institutional food providers do because it’s not reliable enough – that’s what direct charity looks like, a raggedy-ass kid who sometimes randomly hands you a loaf of bread, not the solid foundation you need to build a successful step out of poverty.

The fact that charitable giving would increase if we got rid of taxes does not negate the argument. I’m saying that charitable giving would not increase enough to make up for all the government spending that we’d be missing out on if the government stopped taxing us, not even close. The average American gives 20% of income to the federal government and 2% to charity. This libertarian argument that having been relieved of that 20% burden, people will turn around and give that 20% (or even half of it) to charity is naive at best.

Sure taxes are wasted by government but not all taxes. Private businesses waste your investment dollars but they don’t make the newspaper like government waste”

What?! Come on. I KNOW you must watch the news & see all the coverage of executive salaries. Gimme a break.

And of course there’s waste with private companies just like we all have waste in our own lives. But private companies (just like we personally) have a powerful incentive, called profit, to waste less. Government, inherently, does not have that same incentive given that it decides when to raise taxes and it has the power to print money.

While I may not agree with everything the government may do with my tax dollars (wars, etc), I don’t find politics interesting enough to get involved. However, I wish there was less selfishness in our society. The current issue on health insurance could impact my coverage, but if it means that my mother [who isn't old enough to get MediCare but makes too much on my fathers' social security to qualify for low-income health care (believe me, I've looked!!)] could get insurance without having to choose between having hot water or food versus medicine, I’m for it! And even if she had good insurance, I’d still be willing to pay more in taxes to ensure that everyone could have health care.

But the food banks are typically not-for-profits (at least around here), not government entities. They have much more incentive to function efficiently b/c they can’t just take $ from other sources (like social security for example).

The article can be found at: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Taxes/Advice/YourRealTaxRate40.aspx

I have seen a number of posters dismiss the 40% all-in tax rate as hyperbolic and/or fictional. In response, I would like to point out that the National Bureau of Economic Research is perhaps the most respected economics research organization in the US. They mark the start and end of our recessions and include many prominent economists among their members. I consider them credible. Many others do too. Like MSN.

If you would like to argue that government priorities should be changed to better serve the needs of the poor, then I am all ears. If you want to argue that our tax laws are unfair to certain groups of people, and the burdens need to be shifted, then I am all ears. If you want to argue that 40% is too low and our government needs to be bigger, then you and I are two very different people!

However, if you want to argue that the 40% all-in tax rate is untrue, then please cite your sources. I appreciate all those who attempted to run the numbers themselves, and I agree that some households indeed pay less, but I still gotta go the economics PhDs on this one.