Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Enough with the Myth that Americans Are Profoundly Libertarian
Because it's simply not true as the following poll shows clearly:
As for me, the more I make, the more I believe it is fair that I should pay more in taxes than people who make less. Of course, I also prefer that my taxes should go towards making the lives of regular people better instead of funding warfare and enriching Wall Street crooks.
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3 comments:
The question is worded in a very open ended manner. For example even someone like me might have to say yes to this question, because I do believe in making the wealthy pay more taxes. They benefit more from having a police and army to protect them and would be the first targets of mob violence if the government collapsed. I just do not believe in making anyone pay taxes to fund welfare programs and that the very notion violates the Constitutional right to property.
Izgad, how do you feel about the various forms of corporate welfare that exist?
Public schools?
FHA loans?
Federally insured student loans?
Pell grants?
Work study?
What kinds of taxes are OK by you -- income? sales? property?
I am against all of them as manifestations of the alliance between big business and big government, serving to benefit the establishment at the expense of outsiders, particularly those at the bottom of the economic ladder and minorities.
I do not go with the standard Republican rhetoric about taxes. I accept that the government needs to tax people to pay for legitimate government services like the police and military. These taxes should come out to a certain amount to be determined by people much smarter than I am. I even accept the notion that rich people should pay more taxes since they benefit the most. In my mind, the ideal way to tax people is a sales tax on what they buy, with extra taxes potentially going on “luxury” items (say any product that costs a certain amount over average). I do not object taxing earnings; if we are going to do this I would want some form of “flat tax” to keep things simple. The issue here is that the more complex something is the more power is being handed over to experts and government bureaucrats.
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