1. In my career so far, I have paid enough taxes to buy 3 houses in cash but I still can't afford 1 house in cash. The machine says "you can buy a house with debt" which is yet another way to create a way to extract money from me when I should have just been able to buy 1 house in the first place. Most of the population has been brainwashed to think "I must pay my taxes, I must go into debt" and hasn't opened their eyes that the system is broken in the first place.
2. The company is taxed when they pay me, I pay taxes on that money again, and then I pay taxes yet again when I buy stuff with it (most of that money is being used to pay someone else's taxes), and then in some cases yet again just for owning it. It's frankly bonkers. 80%+ of money I make for the machine goes to paying taxes of sorts. I see very little of it.
Yeah, the country needs money to support infrastructure, you say. Fine. For what the US provides its citizens, it really doesn't need that much. There are countries that tax at similar rates to the US. They have well-developed railway systems, almost free healthcare, free university, they control crime effectively, they're delivering actual value to the citizens. If you dig into it, the US is a massive money laundering scheme -- the economy has learned to tax the fuck out of citizens without actually returning that value to the citizens themselves.
You misunderstand. Your taxes are not for infrastructure. It's for a ships and planes, guns and ammo, and interest to pay our debt. It's to cripple our enemies and intimidate our allies. It's also to keep the masses of desperate people from starvation so they do not take to the streets, but you needn't worry about that soon.
You will sacrifice more for this system you see little benefit from. You may be called to fight for it, and you may even die for it, and the people who benefit the most from all of this killing and waste will eventually lose their hold on power due to the putrid state of the system itself.
~40% of every dollar produced in the US gets collected to federal, state, or local taxes. It is entirely possible that this could be 80% for some people.
Tax as a percent of the economy has gone through the roof, both as a percent of GDP, and as inflation adjusted dollars.
If you compare to a benchmark like the 1940s, tax% of GDP has more than doubled, and GDP has increased ~4.5x. This means someone today pays about 10X the taxes (controlling for for inflation!). State and local taxes have grown even faster than federal taxes.
Is the typical taxpayer getting 10 time more back from the government? Do we have 10X the schooling? 10X the police and safety? 10X the roads?
>If you compare to a benchmark like the 1940s, tax% of GDP has more than doubled, and GDP has increased ~4.5x. This means someone today pays about 10X the taxes (controlling for for inflation!). State and local taxes have grown even faster than federal taxes.
That's cherrypicking. Income tax as % of GDP basically has stayed the same at around 8% since after ww2. Most people wouldn't think of the entire time period past ww2 as "over the decades".
How's that surprising? The duties of the state isn't fixed. It can grow with time, hence greater spending in absolute terms. Not to mention stuff like cost disease causing prices to go up even for the same stuff.
I think it is interesting because similar % GDP seems to be treated steady state function of government, not one that inherently expansive.
For those of us that have been around for a while, it seems shocking that real, inflation controlled government taxes and spending per capitia is >2x that of the 80's, because experientially, many of the services seems no different, if not in decline.
I also think it is interesting to think about what government duties become more and less difficult to maintain with growth, and the implications for what types of objectives the government is well and poorly suited to achieve.
I think the Baumol effect is a helpful lens for exploring this, so I think you.
>~40% of every dollar produced in the US gets collected to federal, state, or local taxes..It is entirely possible that this could be 80% for some people.
>This means someone today pays about 10X the taxes (controlling for for inflation!)....Is the typical taxpayer getting 10 time more back from the government
So the amount increased 10x , what does that have to do with getting 10x your money back?
Or are you saying that since it's 10x more there should be 10x greater quality?
yes, I would expect the quality or quantity to be vastly greater. Ultimately, 10x the utility in one form or another.
I dont think the changes in military or interstate justify a 1,000% higher taxes on an ongoing basis.
with respect to 40+%, property tax would be an easy way to eat up an arbitrarily large portion of income. Similarly, fixed fees and fines can eat up a lot for low earners.
2. The company is taxed when they pay me, I pay taxes on that money again, and then I pay taxes yet again when I buy stuff with it (most of that money is being used to pay someone else's taxes), and then in some cases yet again just for owning it. It's frankly bonkers. 80%+ of money I make for the machine goes to paying taxes of sorts. I see very little of it.
Yeah, the country needs money to support infrastructure, you say. Fine. For what the US provides its citizens, it really doesn't need that much. There are countries that tax at similar rates to the US. They have well-developed railway systems, almost free healthcare, free university, they control crime effectively, they're delivering actual value to the citizens. If you dig into it, the US is a massive money laundering scheme -- the economy has learned to tax the fuck out of citizens without actually returning that value to the citizens themselves.