Are we really overtaxed?

Last year, public expenditure is 44% of the U.S. GDP. All that money must come from somewhere. Define your own "over".

 

In California, I get taxed 9% when I buy groceries in the market. I get taxed when I fill up my gas tank. When I buy bottled water, there is recycling fee charged in advance. I get taxed when I receive pay, and I get taxed when I pay for almost everything. Our living is taxed. Now I can understand some necessary public spending like medicare, cop, fire, freeway, you can't tell me there is no "over-tax" problem.

 

But a lot of that was the bailout money and we had hundreds of millions in bailout money. The problem is not that we are overtaxed, its that public sector is getting too large.

 

The question is whether we are overtaxed, not whether Federal taxes are too high. You have to look at the total amount that you pay to all levels of government. It gets pretty high.

 

Don't forget about state disposal fees for tires and batteries.

There is a governmentally imposed fee for virtually every transaction.

 

In the instances where there is a state remediation fund that only deals with managing safe battery disposal or safe tire disposal, is that really the same thing as getting taxed on income and having that tax being deposited in the general fund?

When there is a one-to-one fee/service linkage like that, I don't know that I view it as being taxed. Where the tax is punitive, like a sin tax, I agree, but the fees you site, I'm not so sure. I guess I don't see what the other options are, besides letting people burn tires in their backyards, or letting battery acid seep into groundwater.

 

i agree to

 

But isn't it a Catch-22 to just say "raise taxes on corporations"? Let's take a big multinational corporation and tax another $1 Billion from them. Who really eats the $1 Billion? Probably not the corporation. Probably the employees that'll get laid off and the consumers that pay more in the store. The management is going to be motivated to still make the EPS estimates, right? I know for certain that the "evil multinational corporation" that I work for would look very hard at laying off a few thousand people if all of a sudden they owed another Billion of so in taxes. Wouldn't it be better if they kept their jobs, were gainfully employed and THEY paid the taxes? Isn't that the theory at least? Its better overall to keep people employed rather than tax the corporation? Or tax the money the corporation spends to reinvest in itself? Or tax the dividends that are paid out to the investors?

I guess my argument is that the corporate profits DO get taxed, just usually down the line after that money has been spent to employ someone, or pay a dividend, or purchase more equipment, or whatever.

 

Tax the churches.

 

The question is whether these one to one fee is really used for its advertised/intended purpose.
Maybe there is a solution of letting market decide and letting business pass it down instead of a mandatory charge for some of the stuff we have to pay and don't know where they go.

 

FICA = 15.3%(Your employer and you each pay 7.65%)

I am not overtaxed. My federal tax has always been $0. I now get the EIC, Making Work Pay, and Child Tax Credits that give me a negative effective rate.

 

Well we get to fight more wars and give more tax dollars to the defense industry to waste. I would suspect that is the big difference.

 

Military waste is huge, but pet projects (legal graft, according to George Washington Plunkett) to get politicians re-elected costs us a lot more.

It's time for a graduated flat tax (10% to 19%?) with no shelters or write-offs for all income, personal or corporate, greater than $25,000 per year.

It is also time to limit all persons who receive a non-retirement state or federal paycheck to be limited to that paycheck. All other fees -- from speaking fees to honorariums to sweetheart loans to etc. etc. -- earned by public employees should be paid to the respective government entity for which they work.

Also, each federal lobbyist should be required to pay a $1M annual fee to the U.S. Treasury.

 

Earmarks (pork, pet projects, whatever) are a tiny, tiny fraction of the amount of money the federal government spends whereas defense spending is 36% of the spending done by the US government. Pork is an economic problem, but it is a small one compared to the amount we spend on defense.

 

We are taxed too much, but we spend way to much. The economic optimum for government as a portion of GDP is less than 25% (linky). We've even gotten to the point that spending borrowed money has a negative impact on the economy.

 

You and I could live well on that "tiny" fraction. I think that, once you line itemed the unnecessary expenditures of pols, the defense spending would be equalled -- and easily so.

 

Fix Medicare/Medicaid and reduce the military budget.

Cutting social programs does little to truly help

 

Do you really believe that's true?

Unless you consider medicare/medicaid/social security to be pet projects, I don't know how that's possible.

See big budget pie chart:

Spoiler