It is that time of year again. The time when we either dread paying money to the government or the time we look forward to getting a refund check. This is the time that many people have a part time job doing people's taxes. Personally, I don't think we should pay an income tax. I think it penalizes the working man/woman. How would that work? Read a book called "The Fair Tax". Enough of this though time for my rant.
I filed my taxes and I am getting back close to what I put in. I am claiming myself and one child and it comes out basically even. The basic family unit in the US calls for two parents and two children and maybe a dog or a cat or whatever (sorry no tax break on the pet). So from a social management standpoint (which includes population controls) we should break even at two children and two parents or for parents that file separately one parent one child.
Now I know you are wondering what does that have to do with anything? Well I hear one person I work with complain because being single with no children he gets less tax breaks and every year he owes the government. Then he sees single mommies or welfare people (sorry I have no control over either what he sees or what he complains about) getting back more money than they put in. The thing that gets me wondering is how does this balance for the government? I know this year it won't. Thanks to our economic stimulus package we as individuals will get slightly more money. It won't save jobs the checks we are getting back, but it looks like the government is helping. What is really happening is the government is sinking farther in debt with no long term return on its quick shot of cash and every year it does this will make people ask why can't we have it again? There is an ancient Chinese proverb, "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for life." Giving us fish isn't going to help us in the long run.
Wow I ranted about both the government stimulus mess and taxes at the same time... Good golly. Anyway back to taxes I think they should use the taxes to encourage our basic family unit two parents and two children. I don't think people should get a free ride (stimulus package bad) and I think our whole tax system is a labor intensive dinosaur that needs to be revamped to encourage business and family in our country.
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Oh, you left so many cool things for me to respond to! So I think for the sake of space, I'm going to reply separately for each so people can ignore the ones they want to and read the ones they find interesting. Fair enough?
The first thing? Government making it too easy for welfare recipients to continue using welfare ...
I know our system has had its issues for a very long time in regards to welfare. But state by state things are slowly changing. Not every state allows it's recipients to stay on welfare indefinitely. Some states have initiated time limits (such as three or five years) that individuals can receive assistance. Others will only provide for up to two children. So those moms who keep getting knocked up either for more income or just out of (my almost apologies) just pure stupidity are out of luck. Now I'm not picking on the families who have hit upon hard times and need temporary help. And I'm not picking on the people whose families were intact at the time they got pregnant. I'm talking about the people who don't even like kid that get knocked up by some strange guy in a bar just to manipulate the system. I'm also talking about those "party girls" who get so smashed that they don't even remember who knocked them up ... let alone that they probably should have used protection. Then they expect the government to help take care of their mistakes.
It's because of these individuals that the laws need to change, and that the some of the laws have already changed. So there is hope. Once the other states see the effect these new laws have in the areas they currently exist ... others will follow.
I know it would be extremely difficult to have a system without some kind of assistance for its poor or elderly. I have no grudge what-so-ever against the elderly. After all, most people make it that far. But it's the poor who show no desire to better themselves that I have a problem with. It's the people that cop the attitude "I paid into the system, now it can pay me," that I have a problem with. Welfare needs to be federally regulated. There needs to be provisions made for job training and placement. There needs to be an across-the-board limit on the amount of time and dollar amount recipients are allowed to receive.
Once people realize that welfare is not a system that can be abused, they will stop trying to abuse it and maybe even hold themselves to higher standards. Then, as a country, we should really see some changes in the economy as more individuals work towards making things better.
But that's just my opinion.
Second? The stimulus package.
Besides the fact that, as you put it, it puts the government further in debt, there are a lot of things this "little gift" doesn't take into account. Those who receive it aren't given the option as to whether they want to receive it or not. No one actually asked us. Not everyone wants a little extra cash in our pocket now, just so we have to claim it on our taxes at the end of the year. Some of us would prefer getting our full refund back in the spring when it's most needed.
Did I mention we have to claim this money? When they first introduced the idea of the stimulus package, they made it sound like it was "free" money to spend on whatever we wanted. So though it seems like the government is handing out free dollars to those of the public they deem worthy, that's not really the case. All the money they give out has to be claimed at the end of the year. It's more like an early refund on taxes. This isn't free money in any sense of the word. And because it is claimed on taxes, the government isn't losing any money from doing this. All it's doing is encouraging people to go out and spend money that they would normally save for other purposes ... leaving them to wonder why their refunds aren't as high as they had been. Duh. Already spent it.
Then you have the individuals who don't qualify for the stimulus checks that also don't always understand the full scope of what they're missing out on. I've had a number of people complain to me about this. By the time I get done ranting about how every year they've handed this out I feel completely screwed over, they finally get the gist that this isn't the pretty little package it is made out to be.
So why does the government do it and not give us a choice? For the unfortunate few, this little bit of extra "income" is enough to put them into the next tax bracket so they have to pay higher taxes at the end of the year. This actually benefits the government.
I have no idea who came up with this idea, but it's far from a gift to the taxpayers.
If I've made any sense at all, please let me know.
Third: Taxes.
Unfortunately this is a topic we can go around and around on. The theories on whether or not taxes should be paid, by whom and to whom, has changed numerous times over the years. The latest complaint is that even with the taxes the government collects, they still are going further into debt.
To address this, we really need to look at the tax process in it's entirety.
You may have noticed that every time you receive a paycheck, there is a shortage in the amount you receive. This is because of things like social security (which you may never collect) and various state, local, and federal taxes. Oooo ... so now they have your money and it's almost a full year before it's tax time. So what happens to the hundreds and thousands of dollars that is collected every pay period from the government? Well, gee. It goes into various accounts where it is invested and earns this thing called interest. (Are you seeing what I'm getting at here?) So if the argument is that out of $100 collected, at the end of the year, the government gave back $100 so it can't be making any money, that argument would be wrong.
Now in some circles it seems like the majority of people not only get back what they put in, but because of things such as losses from gambling, mortgage interest, schooling expenses, they get back more than they put in. Now the argument is, if the government is paying out more than they take in, then no wonder we are in debt!
But once again, the whole picture is not being taken into account. There are groups of people who have to pay in additional money to the government as well.
The tax system by itself makes more money than it sends out. But this isn't the only form of income, and not the only place for expenses. So to claim the state of the economy is due to just one or two things isn't entirely accurate. Unfortunately the majority of the public don't have complete access to all of the country's income and expenses at one convenient location or website, so it makes it difficult to see exactly where everything stands and where it's headed outside of what the media and government want you to see. Revising one or two things isn't going to make a major difference either. A unified country effort on all aspects of spending and income would be about the only truly effective means. But since the likelihood of that happening is like next to nothing ... I think I'll just stick to complaining about taxes, albeit unfairly.
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