Now that it's 2008, time for that other annual tradition... might as well start getting stuff ready early. After all, they want what they feel is theirs. And, around here, it's usually accompanied by a rather fishy odor.

Ah yes...as Pogo (or actually Walt Kelly) so aptly referred to them; The Infernal Revenue Service!

Legal organized crime!

New tax formula:

How much did you make: _________

How much did you spend: - _________

Send it in: _________

People should stop thinking of the tax that they pay and rather thinking about the money the government(s) spends. Where are your tax dollars actually going? A huge chunk of your federal tax dollars go toward the US military and the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's hard to understand how one could simultaneously support those efforts and at the same time curse the IRS for collecting the money to fund them.

Andrew

Well put, Andrew. For each dollar of federal income tax you pay, here's how it shakes out:

41¢ for war and preparing for war (28¢), and obligations from past wars (13¢), including veterans programs and interest on the military portion of the national debt.

19¢ for health programs, including Medicaid, which provides nursing home care for the elderly poor, and health care for the poor and disabled, and parts of Medicare, which subsidizes health care for older Americans.

12¢ to respond to poverty in the U.S. with food programs, housing assistance, income supports, and energy assistance.

10¢ for interest on the non-military portion of the national debt.

5¢ to promote community and economic development, including agricultural programs, highways and mass
transit, and federal communications commission.

5¢ for education, job training, employment, and social services.

4¢ to run the government, including law enforcement, homeland security, and benefits for government employees.

3¢ for science, energy, and environmental programs.

1¢ for humanitarian aid, diplomatic missions,
and international cooperation.

http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/taxday07.pdf

Wow, will you all look at that?

12 percent for food programs, housing, poverty, etc...

add in the 5 percent for education, job training and social services, and we got what?

~20 percent total? (Including the aid people often bitch about)



---and we've got people trying to play up tax and spend Democrats?

Look at that war figure folks! (It's gonna go up too, or our taxes will, one or the other, probably both.)

And the same ideas that bring us a pretty high tax burden for war, are also doing things that bring wages down, and risk for ordinary people up too!

Put another way: If every single dollar, of that 20 percent was considered waste, all those programs were eliminated, the return to any one of us would only be 20 percent of the tax burden.

If your taxes are $5K / year, and you make $50K, then that's really only an extra $80 or so per month, and in return one would then get nothing! No public schools, no grants, no assistance for poor or disabled people, etc...

That's a tank of gas and some snacks for your SUV!

A one dollar per hour wage increase is $160 per month, just for some perspective.

When people got their $300 checks, for that big ass tax cut (mostly for the upper percentile, by the way), did that really make any significant difference to you?

Of course not, look at the numbers!

Factor in things like outsourcing, high energy costs, devaluation of the dollar, and it's ugly --ugly enough that $80 isn't gonna mean squat, in terms of real life choices a whole bunch of us are gonna have to make.

Bottom line, if taxes are "too much" in your view, then perhaps our current policy direction isn't "the right one"!

Given the GOP has called the shots on this, and the conservative movement has been working for many years to get things going their direction, it's a no-brainer to wonder if it's in our best interests.

Vit: Any chance at a break down like that for pre-iraq, and maybe 10 years before that?

Damn, with PBS nearly off the federal budget, conservatives can no BS about how the federal dollars are going down a huge wasteful black hole.

The fact of the matter is this is that most y'all conservatives are fraidy cats and our federal budget reflects that. Chickens, I say . . . cluck, cluck, cluck, terrified of desert nitwits. Thanks for nothing. Including nothing for PBS.

/rant

"A huge chunk of your federal tax dollars go toward the US military and the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's hard to understand how one could simultaneously support those efforts and at the same time curse the IRS for collecting the money to fund them."


Right... because we didn't pay any Federal taxes before the Iraq and Afghanistan efforts, did we. In fact, the IRS was set up by Bush and Cheney, right? I also heard that Bush invented cancer, and that most diseases would not even exist, except for the fact that Dick Cheney sneaks into the rooms of unsuspecting Americans at night and poisons them.

The point being, federal taxes would be significantly less painful, or we would be getting a hell of a lot more for them, per dollar, had Bush Cheney not did what they did.

Shane writes:

Right... because we didn't pay any Federal taxes before the Iraq and Afghanistan efforts, did we.

Funny, you were the first one to bring up Bush and Cheney - why is it that you thought of them first?

Our government certainly was more fiscally responsible before Bush/Cheney though. How in the hell could anyone turn a huge surplus into a huge deficit in such a short time? There is no free lunch. In time, the trillions of dollars of new debt we've borrowed to pay for Iraq (especially) and for Afghanistan and the extra future cost of veteran care, etc. will be billed to us - either in the form of higher taxes or lower services when spending on something else is cut. You want to pay the bill later (our grandkids) or now?

Military spending declined under Clinton - that was one reason we wound up with budget surpluses when he left office. Bush came into office with a broadcast agenda of raising military spending even before 9/11. Military spending is now out of control. Does anyone really believe that 9/11 was caused by spending too little on the US military? It's absolutely absurd that our military spending as a percentage of the federal budget is back where it was during the Cold War.

Andrew

"Funny, you were the first one to bring up Bush and Cheney - why is it that you thought of them first?"

Because Bush was President when the events you were bemoaning started. And, you've made no secret about your anti-Bush stance, which of course you have every right to take. But it's not a stretch to assume you're angry at Bush and Cheney when you criticize the events they are responsible for.

Do I read you correctly when you suggest you were against the effort in Afghanistan? That's pretty unbelievable. Our effort there did a lot to hurt the Taliban, and it was exactly what was called for after 9/11. I think Gore, Clinton, or anyone else who was President would have made that same move. Iraq is more controversial, granted. But I'm very glad that we went into Afghanistan.

"anti-Bush stance"

I'm sorry, it is hard to be FACTUAL and not sound like one is anti-Bush.

I would say it's an anti-Bush agenda to mention only the dollars spent on the multiple fronts of the war on terror, and to bring up select facts and figures, but never consider whether we're safer because of some of these actions. If you start out being against someone because of his core beliefs, so you gather facts and figures about his actions to make your case against him, that's called an agenda. I'm not happy with Bush either right now, but I don't think everything he has done is negative.

Shane, you've read so much into my original response that I really don't know where to start. How about we go back to what I originally said and try to start again? I don't even want to begin to comment on all these other side issues you've tried to attribute to me.

I repeat from above:

People should stop thinking of the tax that they pay and rather thinking about the money the government(s) spends. Where are your tax dollars actually going? A huge chunk of your federal tax dollars go toward the US military and the adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's hard to understand how one could simultaneously support those efforts and at the same time curse the IRS for collecting the money to fund them. (Emphasis added this time)

Andrew

We both post here a lot though, and based on some of the postings I've seen, it's no mystery why you chose the word "adventure", for instance, to describe our ambitions in Iraq and Afghanastan. I did go in that direction when I saw your post, true. Didn't mean to change the subject so much.

So do you agree that those who enthusiastically support these military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan should NOT complain about paying the taxes that are required to pay for them?

Andrew

Yes, that's fair. But it doesn't mean someone doesn't have the right to complain about other things taxes are spent on.

I disagree, Shane. If you support unnecessary war and a bloated military, then can it when it comes to complaining about taxes, since the far majority of federal income tax money goes to that effort.

The US Military is the largest item in the federal budget (even larger if you count paying to care for veterans of past wars). So it is silly to complain about taxes but say you support the military spending. We all have the right to complain about how our tax money is spent, but that's very different than complaining about taxes.

Andrew

Shane said>>>
But I'm very glad that we went into Afghanistan.

I second that.

"If you support unnecessary war and a bloated military, then can it when it comes to complaining about taxes, since the far majority of federal income tax money goes to that effort."

I'll leave your syntax alone, and instead focus on the point you are making. You're doing that thing that so many bloggers on this thread do: You're assuming that we all agree with your premise that the military efforts overseas are "unnecessary", and that the military is "bloated". If I happen to think they are necessary, that gives me a right to complain about other things tax dollars are spent on. In other words, it boils down to an argument about what IS necessary when it comes to spending tax dollars.

The interesting part about that is the impact!

To get ones tax bill cut in half, it's almost as if we spend on nothing but war.

Shane, thanks for leaving my syntax alone. I wasn't a linguistics major in college. I've got a business degree and work in the finance industry, so I'm used to dealing with dollars, percentages, rates, etc. My ultimate objective is to get my point across, whether it be grammatically kosher or not.

All I'm saying is that when I hear someone complaining about paying taxes, yet support the current military budget, my reaction is this: Cry me a fucking river.

This brings up another point/issue that I sometimes hear from some; that people who don't pay taxes should have no say in any political process, including voting or lobbying for/against certain expenditures, or running for office.

It's also got me to wonder that since we've had all vote by mail for almost 10 years now, if anything has happened along the lines of an 18-year old high schooler that lives with their parents registering to vote at a school function, then their parents throw away the ballot before 'junior' ever sees it, and if 'junior' ever inquires about it the parents feed him/her a line.

'Junior' can complain to the elections division about not receiving a ballot. Including up to and ON election day.

If the parents are caught tossing ballots, its a felony. (Right, Andrew?)

I don't know anyone where this has happened to them, nor has it happened to myself; but I just wonder if something like this has happened since vote by mail started.

I'll bet that has happened. I also bet ballots put into the mail by proxy have not made it there either.

Neither event is likely significant. (low enough numbers to not matter)