'Illegal' is the Key Word

Tax Freedom Day answers the basic question, “What price is the nation paying for government?” We divide the most authoritative figure for tax collections by the most authoritative figure for income. The answer this year is that we’re paying 29.1 percent of our income, which amounts to working from January 1 until April 17 for government.

This seems a little unclear to me as to whether the percentage is of income tax collections or of all tax collections. As I mentioned, I included every tax we pay (directly or indirectly) in my estimate. My 60% was admittadly a very rough estimate of my own making, but I have to think it's higher than 30%. I'll be paying more than 20% just in income taxes when I graduate.

We aren't getting our money's worth.

Because they are worthless and won't work for it themselves.

You are talking like a communist/socialist. The government shouldn't be in charge of controling any of these things.

The market is quite efficient, this happening wouldn't be any likelier than it is now.

 

We get short-changed on some things, but we also get a lot more than we realize. That's why I like to look at history and world-wide conditions. It helps me keep things in perspective and better appreciate what I have.

You are lumping an awful lot of people in the same barrel by including (over the course of history) a lot of hard-working people in your "worthless" category.

I am talking like an American who realizes we are all the government, and this government should be used as a tool to collectively do what we as individuals can't do, and that's maintain our status as the most prosperous population on the face of the earth. Sometimes we can yield better results on a global scale working together as Americans than we can as individual capitalists. I'm not willing to sacrifice my prosperity for the sake of a completely free world market. It would be nice if the rest of the world could enjoy the same things we have. But, for that to happen, they can't be brought all the way up to our level, we'd have to meet them in the middle, and I'm not willing to do that.

You'll just have to live and learn to get my point on this.

 

you cant seem to get it through your head that if foreigners get more weathly, it isnt at our expense. when we have access to cheap labor and products, that makes us more wealthy too. you dont seem to understand the concept of growth.

it isnt us vs them fighting over a limited amount of wealth. efficiency increases weath and makes the pie bigger.

dont take away my freedom to efficiently buy products because you are afraid of competition and capitalism.

you are sacrificing everyone's prosperity, including your own, by restricting growth of the world economy.

 

you dont seem to grasp the concept of capital and wealth either. if bill gates wanted to, he could own more food than anyone in the history of the world by next weekend. YOU CAN BUY THINGS WITH MONEY. GET IT?

you dont have to make food to have food.

 

so if you lived in a place like hong kong, with virtually no farmers or farmable land(but very wealthy), you would be in perpetual fear?

 

Well said. And, I'd like to add, martin seems to fail to understand something is valuable because other people don't have it. Wealth is valuable because a bunch of people are poor. We should just run the mints overtime and print enough money to make the whole world wealthy, that would fix everything.

 

Not as long as a wonderful, caring country like the United States is producing enough food for me too.

 

or japan for that matter, who imports most of their food. would you be scared living in a country as rich as japan because the food was being bought from outside your borders?

pay attention : a rich (free) country can always feed itself. it is poor (and oppressed non-free) countries that starve.

 

tell that to a mercedes salesman. his products have value because people are NOT poor.

you simply do not understand.