Warren buffet pays about 17%, and the people in his office pay an average of 36%. So the solution, the way to restore fairness, is to raise taxes on him? I don't really think so. Maybe I'm a bit of a wingnut, but I find tax rates of about 30% disgusting simply on moral grounds, and I don't see why the discussion should go much further. Surely one of a government's prime constraints should be not screwing its citizens?
I live in Australia, I'm in my late 20's, I've got a pretty good software dev job and I pay about 25% income tax (which includes 37% above $80k). I don't know what the real tax rate would be after factoring in all of the other taxes I pay.
For such a high amount of tax, I enjoy a very high standard of living. A four year software engineering degree cost me about $18k due to our sane education system, and I've never had to worry about whether I can afford decent healthcare or factored health insurance into career decisions.
Our high tax rate is offset by lower costs for universal services, and people generally have more freedom with their life decisions. As such, a substantially lower tax rate or major cut in social services would be disgusting on moral grounds to me, and I feel that your government is screwing its citizens by doing just that.
You know what I find "simply disgusting on moral grounds"? Shortening the school year by a week because we can't find enough money to pay teachers to teach a full school year. This is happening in our school district and in districts all over the country. The reason is because nobody can make a correlation between the taxes we pay and the benefits we receive.
I don't feel like I'm getting screwed. As a small business owner, I think I get fantastic value for the taxes I pay every year. It could be better, sure, but having lived on 4 continents, it's here that I've chosen to live and start my latest business.
Without government to pay for the roads citizens drive to their businesses, and the infrastructure that gives them water and temperature moderation, and 1,000 other things that are essential to provide for functioning commerce, citizens wouldn't be making so much money as they do. And I'd wager that effect is worth a lot more than 30%.
Exhibit A would be the lack of societal collapse during the 90s, when government spending per-capita and as a percentage of GDP was significantly lower than today.
If we're going to cite the 90s, let's not forget that taxes were a good bit higher then as well. In fact, right at the end there, we had a budget surplus.
Yes, and I agree we need to raise taxes (putting me in a very small minority of libertarians). But as to the question of how much government needs to spend in order to have a functioning society, the clear answer is "much less than it spends today".
Maybe. It depends on what we as a society want our government to spend money on. Considering our current demands in this country (no cuts to entitlements), I think it requires at least that much.
