There’s a distinct feeling of being fleeced that one gets
each year around mid-April. I’m not one to think the Federal Government can or
should be funded without the common and general support of the population, but
it’s pretty hard to go through the income tax ritual every year without having
some pretty dark feelings about the state of that Federal government and our
collective finances as a society.
When we see the Federal government losing track of $15 billion
dollars on occasion, just losing it, it’s difficult to sit for hours and
diligently record the income and expenses of a middle-class family, dealing in
the 10’s and 100’s of thousands of dollars, trying to sort out your declared
share of the financial burden of the country, without feeling like a total
rube. I mean, seriously? I need to report these hundred and low-thousand-dollar
expenses, I need to classify each three and four figure interest statement? I
need to send a check for an amount of money that is substantial in relation to
my income and savings, but entirely invisible when compared to the frivolous
outlays and outright loss and corruption, to the tune of hundreds of billions
of dollars a year, at the hands of our federal government? It’s asinine.
The four to five figure tax burden paid yearly by those in
the middle class is a pittance in the face of our national expenses, even
though they would be life changing amounts of money to the family forced to
remit it. To truly add insult to injury, the taxes collected from everyone each
year doesn’t cover the overall expenses of the government. It starts to feel
preposterous that we have to continue the charade of paying taxes to support
our government for our mutual societal interest when the funding of the
government is done entirely through debt cycling, with very connected
individuals profiting in the 8-9 figure range for managing the charade through
various security and debt instruments.
Don’t forget the tax preparation industry raking a cool $104
billion dollars a year right off the top and the bankers that manage the slush
fund of debt who reap seven figure bonuses. Meanwhile, a 72-year-old pensioner
on a $3000 per month fixed income is sending $4000 a year to the IRS to “fund the
activities of the government.”
This is not a system for the people. Those inclined to argue
for higher taxes for the rich have good intentions, I think. They see there is
an unfairness in the system and believe the culprit is tax cheating rich
people. The mythology surrounding what rich people pay is pretty far off base
from reality. The top one percent do pay the largest share of taxes, and that
number is higher than most “tax-the-rich” folks would advocate for once they learn
the actual number. The problem isn’t the tax rate at any given level per se.
The problem is bigger than that, and there are myriad angles that could be
discussed here, but I’ll focus on these two. One part of the problem is debt
fueled spending that drives inflation, wiping out the monthly buying power of
the citizenry, and then still demanding 8-15% of their income to finance that
very same debt driven spending. The second part of the problem is the method
and implementation of the tax system itself, and the expense of that
implementation and enforcement.
The problem is not disparity in taxing the rich vs the poor,
the problem is in the expenses of the government and whether or not the expenses that system requires is bringing fair value to the citizenry. As long as
our overall governmental expenses are greater than the income collected through
taxation, inflation will secretly steal away value from everyone. Changes in
tax rate, at any tier, won’t cure this. At current spending levels, no amount
of taxation would cover the expenses of operating our government in any one
year.
Eliminating hundreds of billions worth of expenses that are incurred
due to the methods and implementation of our tax code would go a long way to
getting those overall general expenses under control, allowing for less overall
spending, lowering inflationary pressure, and lowering the tax burden on
everyone, especially those most vulnerable who are on a fixed income.
Paying taxes is never an exciting and happy feeling thing to
do. But it is a necessary evil in a cohesive and generally organized society. However,
the taxes aren’t currently paying for the orderly execution of social needs. In
fact, they barely cover the interest on the debt, so bankers managing that debt
can profit billions, and CPA’s can profit billions, while fixed income
pensioners send four figure checks to the IRS in some sort of financial
sacrificial ritual. Being able to keep that $4000 would change that pensioner’s
life for that quarter, but instead, it becomes barely a molecule of debt
service once paid into the banker’s slush fund.
At this micro level, we have to be able to see how letting
the citizen keep the money is the only answer. The citizen would need less
assistance, cutting down on the need for social services, lowering the need for
ever larger tax receipts, and allowing us to reduce the cost of government
further, bringing inflation under control so that buying power in the middle
and lower classes could stabilize, allowing low-income and fixed income
citizens to maintain a basic living standard without further eroding their
ability to provide for themselves.
We need to see that first laundering a citizen’s money
through the accounting, banking, and federal bureaucracy to then provide that
citizen with the “help they need” is preposterous. In no system, imaginary or
otherwise, can that be a more efficient and cost-effective way of getting
services to a citizen. Stop taking their money and they won’t need so much
help. Stop deficit-spending our dollar into oblivion and the citizen won’t need
so much help.
And for goodness’ sake, quit taxing the pensioners. It’s
just payola to the CPA industry and an obvious Ponzi triangle of financial
shell games between CPAs, federal bankers, and the government bureaucrats that
protect them, and who profit alongside them at our expense. If those who profit
from this system can keep the rubes distracted by arguing over marginal rates,
the entire charade can continue unchecked, profiting the connected to the tune
of hundreds of billions of dollars, and fleecing the public, like sheep, every
April.
