You are majoring on the minors. No, I am not talking about social programs. I am talking bridges to nowhere and airports used once a day and the like including military expenditures for useless airplanes. Did you even consider the rest of what I wrote? Look at the big picture of what I am saying.
I still don't understand. I thought you were saying that the amount of "pork" is equal to the defense budget for wars and other defense waste, which is what glynch was referring to. Isn't that what you meant? This site states that there was about $20 billion in pork spending in 2009. This site says that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cost $150 billion in 2009. Or am I misunderstanding you?
thumbs, taking what you said literally would prohibit state university professors who spend their summers working for USAID, for example, from doing it. That's absurd.
Which will come first a President with the backbone to propose MASSIVE cuts in defense or the public becoming educated enough to understand that benefit and demand it? When I pose this question to Conservatives the usual response is about all of those poor workers who would lose their jobs. We could spend money building a bomb or we could build money building infrastructure. Either way someone gets a job, I would rather build something that has some use afterwards and for a long time after that. I am not overtaxed. "Taxes are the price you pay for a civilized society" Oliver Wendall Holmes
I think that is an exaggeration. Surey, getting ris of these unnecessary expenditures is a damned good start, but that is merely holding the ax. The next step is to start chopping wood.
If you are waiting for the American public at large to care enough to become educated on these topics, you will grow very, VERY old waiting.
I will concede if you as a taxpayer will examine last year's budget or this year's budget line item by line item to determine what expenditures are waste and which ones are necessary. If each citizen had the time to do that, we really could -- and would -- start chopping.
Are any of them really "necessary?" Is an interstate highway system "necessary?" Is Medicare "necessary?" Are subsidies for medical research "necessary?" I submit that the answers to those questions depend on who you are and what your life is like. If all taxpayers examined the budget and chopped that which is not "necessary," we would have 270,000,000 different lists of what to cut. Remember, this is a country where you cannot get five people in a room to agree on pizza toppings, let alone anything of actual import.
The first link I gave you is from Citizens Against Government Waste. Sounds like they're doing exactly what you describe above, and "only" came up with $20 billion for 2009. That's a lot less than the $150 billion+ from the wars. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're referring to.
Federal: <img src=http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_ZTcCp8eYEyI/S7uAwIzeOFI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/xFl8Qj_D9P4/s1600/taxes+share+gdp.PNG width=770 height=418> Total: <img src=http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ZTcCp8eYEyI/S7t-wtj-UAI/AAAAAAAAAQs/6V5-fK6D_fw/s1600/oecd+gdp.PNG width=770 height=418> In neither case do we pay anywhere close to 50%. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/04/jonah-goldberg-quarter-slave.html
Are we overtaked? I'm not, I just pay my 3.5% sales tax(I make sure I shop in impoverished areas where the sales tax is 1/2 of my states norm) do my parents? No, they're accountants and no every possible way to make sure they're not in their proper bracket. Do the insanely rich(Trump, Gates level) No. They got lawyers and accountants to figure out how to make sure they pay the lowest amount of taxes. You know who is overtaxed? Welfare recipents. You pay income tax on welfare!!! You should be given welfare money with the taxes already deducted. If you are on welfare you should not pay income tax!
Don't worry about not being at 50% yet. It's coming very soon - unless the government decides to inflate their way out of the national debt. And to the person who said they weren't overtaxed because of the EIC and all the other credits they get (juicystream): the original poster was talking to the working class (middle-class white and blue-collar workers). Ask me how thrilled I am to pay for your kids and their schooling and all the other benefits you get from the government.
YOU may not be overtaxed, those paying nearly half of their income may think otherwise. I am a moderate conservative, but I am developing an opinion that maybe we should have more corporate taxing, corporations who contribute to societal problems should have to pay a tax, we should also adopt a carbon emissions tax. For instance, fast food corporations would have to pay a tax for contributing to obesity. Some will say this is ridiculous because we have the CHOICE to eat their food, yes, but they don't advertise the amount of chemicals and additives in their food. Here is just one example: POPEYE'S SPICY CHICKEN SPICY SEASONING: SALT, SELECTED BLEND OF CAPSICUMS, GARLIC, MONOSODIUM GLUTAMATE, CUMIN AND MUSTARD. CONTAINS: MSG POULTRY BATTER: ENRICHED BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR (ENRICHED WITH NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE, MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), SALT, SPACK [ENRICHED BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR (ENRICHED WITH NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE, MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, FOLIC ACID), SALT, SUGAR, FD&C YELLOW #5 (MAY ALSO CONTAIN YELLOW #6, RED #40, RED #3, GRAPE COLOR EXTRACT, BLUE #1, BLUE #2, BEET COLOR EXTRACT, ANNATTO EXTRACT AND/OR TURMERIC EXTRACT), SPICES, DRIED WHOLE EGGS, NONFAT DRIED MILK, LEAVENING (SODIUM BICARBONATE AND/OR SODIUM ALUMINUM SULFATE), MICROCRYTALLINE CELLULOSE, NATURAL FLAVOR (ALL FLAVOR INGREDIENTS CONTAINED IN THIS FLAVOR ARE APPROVED FOR USE IN A REGULATION OF FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION OR ARE LISTED AS GENERALLY RECOGNIZED AS SAFE ON A RELIABLE PUBLISHED INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION LIST. THIS PRODUCT ALSO CONTAINS CORN SYRUP SOLIDS). CONTAINS: WHEAT, EGG, MILK AND YELLOW #5 & #6, RED #3 AND #40, BLUE #1 AND BLUE #2. FLOUR: BLEACHED WHEAT FLOUR, MALTED BARLEY. CONTAINS: WHEAT All of these extra chemicals may add to the flavor, and allow them produce their items on a larger scale, but at the expense of the consumer's health? As for carbon emissions, Exxon posted something like a 4 or a 5 billion dollar quarter a few years ago, and their annual carbon foot print is over 138 million tons, would it really hurt them to pay a little more to help clean up the mess THEY helped create? The middle class shouldn't have to pay for societies problems, and the upper class shouldn't be responsible for all of it. Certainly they can afford to fork over a few more bucks, but 50% is a bit ridiculous imo. As a kid, did anyone else ever find it interesting that you basically have to pay to live on earth, there aren't many places you can just go and live your life, make your food (grow it, hunt it, etc). We are forced into today's society and I am a little uncomfortable about our future. Anyone else have similar feelings?
You give me hope for humanity. We live in corporate slavery, I try to drive it into people's heads that we live in a two-tiered system of government, one being the old Republic and the second being the shadow system, which is a FEDERAL CORPORATION operating under the veil of democracy and de facto law. Straight from the US Code: http://assembler.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode28/usc_sec_28_00003002----000-.html "(15) “United States” means— (A) a Federal corporation; (B) an agency, department, commission, board, or other entity of the United States; or (C) an instrumentality of the United States. " Once you discover this well hidden information, you may begin to understand why things are the way they are. We're basically serfs being used to pay off a debt to international banks and oligarchs. A classic example of a LONG CON, and one that has been used throughout history. The ones who control the money supply run the world, why do you think Jesus spoke out so strongly against the practice of usury? "If the American people knew tonight, exactly how the monetary and banking system worked, there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." - Abraham Lincoln
As a moderate conservative, you need to go start reading www.wattsupwiththat.com and learn about the massive problems with the whole catastrophic AGW idea. Maybe you'll get over the whole concept of a "carbon footprint".
