[quote=jimmyle]We all know that we need a government. The only debate is that how big should it be? Currently, the majority of people think that the government has gotten too big and too wasteful. Our sales tax started out at 0%, and now it is approaching 10% and they still want to squeeze in another half percent and people are tired of this.[/quote]
Yes, sales tax may well be one of the more visible forms of tax to many people. But on a forum like this I would hope that we can look at the cost/benefits of government more subjectively, rather than digressing to a few distracting talking points. Isn’t that what our politicians are for?
Here’s the way I look at it:
My 1st assumption is that most reasonable people would agree that over a single “economic cycle” the budget should balance (i.e. total tax revenue = total spending).
Therefore, if lower spending = lower taxes then shouldn’t we be looking at the major spending categories?
I believe the major spending categories are something like:
Medicare, Medicaid, etc (33%)
Social Security (21%)
Defense (20%)
So, if this is where the majority of tax dollars are spent, why are we wasting our time on this board talking about this vague “big government” boogie man which the “majority of people” is wasting their life worrying about?
Or do we think that those 3 main spending categories have much less $$ fat to trim than others?
Or is it possible that we actually all need to and soon will end up paying more tax than we already do, but the only way to make that palatable to ourselves is to expend 90% of our efforts to reduce our spending (and we therefore assume our tax bills) by $1.50 per year each. Big whoop.
