Do you think we are over taxed or under taxed in the USA

I don’t really know..

But I can say this. They spend what we make on the wrong stuff.

amen to that

It is the governments money first right?? They are so nice to let us keep some!
We are way overtaxed. Everyone, even the so-called rich are overtaxed!

I wouldn’t mind paying taxes that went to any good use besides murder and corporate profit. How many trillions so far? How much of it has been “lost”?

Let’s talk about giving people educations and cleaning up the country. Domestic investments.

Taxes need to be set on a percentage scale so everyone pays the “same”. The last thing rich people need is a tax break, and the last thing the poor need is an increase in taxes. Yet in all the rep. party’s wisdom, thats exactly what they’ve done.

Germany issues ticket fines, based on a percentage of your salary. This way everyone is punished equally. Its an amazing country, we could learn so much from their logistics.

@spargett would you trust the leadership we have now with more of your money

Trust the dry drunk and pathological liar? I would give my debit card to my cat before I would trust that dumb shit with my money. Unfortunately I don’t really have a choice. Only eight more months of malcompetence.

I think we’ve been chronically under-taxed seeing has how we’ve managed to accrue a national debt of 9.3 TRILLION dollars. Essentially I’ve inherited a 30k dollar debt from my grandparents’ and parents’ generations because they were too cheap to pay for their own expenses. The one time in recent history when we actually made more than we spent, instead of finally making a payment on that insanely large debt, we decided to take a tax-credit instead.

If we were forced to completely pay for what our government spent every year, I think we’d hold our government to a much higher standard in terms of justifying it’s expenses. I’m not sure what we spend daily in Iraq, but I have a feeling that most republicans would be a lot less enthusiastic about the “war on terror” if their taxes went up 10% or so to cover that cost. Expanding our Government’s bureaucracy with redundant agencies like the Department of Homeland Security would also likely not survive if that added expense was directly carried by the people, and not mortgaged onto a future generation.

I’ve always wanted to hear someone from an older generation justify to me why they think I should pick up the tab on their expenses. What would you say if I walked into a car dealership and picked out a nice 30K car and when they asked how I was going to finance it I told them to bill my grandfather (without consulting him first). Is the current situation really all that different? It’s a bunch of bullshit that really pisses me off every time I start thinking about it.

I think those who think we’re undertaxed should send more of their money to the US Treasury, and leave the rest of us alone.

@rawpixels the whole idea of taxes is that they’re not like charity. They’re not optional. They’re a shared responsibility for our shared costs.

If I paid an extra 10% in taxes, it wouldn’t do much to get the country out of debt. However, if everyone was required to pay and extra 10%, that’s a significant amount of money.

I’m not confidant that the current government wouldn’t squander that additional revenue, but it’s totally irresponsible to increase spending while cutting taxes when we are already under a mountain of debt. It unfairly shifts the burden of our expenses to future generations. The taxes that you don’t want to pay will be paid many times over by your children and grandchildren.

I think we’re reasonably taxed, but I think the money is being spent on all the wrong things.

And Massachusetts has this periodic wrangle over raising the tax rate. The last time around, it was written into law that people had the option of paying taxes at the proposed higher rate if they so chose. Oddly enough, an order of magnitude more people were in favor of everyone paying higher taxes than were willing to voluntarily pay higher taxes themselves.

I wouldn’t mind paying taxes if it went to a good cause like perpetuating a cycle of government dependency amongst the poor and creating a massive health system that will give people the idea that they have health insurance, run by a government bureacrat.
And maybe building a bridge in ALaska that goes to an island of a few hundred people who don’t want to bridge but some Senator does.

@paws do you not think its fair to pass on the cost of things like roads or should we pay the full price and they use them for free

Over taxed. Not only am I getting $300 a week taken out in federal taxes, I help pay companies taxes for them through products and services I buy. How come you have to pay sales tax on a used car?

I wouldn’t mind paying taxes if our government was more efficient. It is too big to be efficient. We have given the federal government way too much power. Alot of the people I talk to complain about how politicians are corrupt, yet get their news from the very corporations that benefit from these corrupt politicians.

@oneeye1 the percent of the national debt reflecting tangible infrastructural assets I’m guessing is fairly small. Furthermore, the infrastructure the older generations are passing on is in such miserable shape and will likely end up costing my generation more to repair, maintain and expand then it would have been to simply build it from the ground up. It’s like inheriting a beat up pinto that won’t pass inspection and sticking me with the bill from when it was new, plus 60 years of interest. I’m sure you can see why that’s a less than appealing prospect.

@sferik…you obviously missed the point of my statement. I never said all taxes should be eliminated, nor did I say anything about spending. I’m someone who believes in limited government, which translates into limited spending and lower taxes overall.

I wish we could pay for everything but the cost of building is alot more than maintaining and we are not doing a good job at either I’m from the twin cites we just had a bridge fall down

@oneye1 that bridge collapse is a perfect example of the kinds of things I’m talking about. It would likely have been cheaper to build a new bridge than inherit one that collapses and then I not only have to pay to build a new one, but also clean up the old mess, and bear the cost of all of the victims of that tragedy. I really do think that we’re getting a pretty shitty product for that 9.3 trillion dollar purchase, one that is more of a liability in many ways than an asset.

look it up where most of the 3 trillion a yr debt comes from

Take an adequate share of my check, but spend it responsibly. “Government by the people, for the people” doesn’t seem to be the standing motto anymore. When did the government stop listening to the majority? And in what freakish parallel universe do they think it is alright to take funds for social security from my check with almost a guarantee that I won’t see a penny of it in 40 years?

We are under taxed in a lot of ways, a fifteen percent tax across the board to corporations and regular Joes would pay off the national debt in five years. the average Joe pays more then that but the corporations don’t. so over taxed and under taxed, a little evening is in order.