Sales Tax issues

[moewadle]

I forgot to answer JesseL

so I will tell you, JesseL, in answer to your question, that I do not donate much of my surplus income to the government but I do some. Here in Iowa when we file our state income tax form we have an option of donating to a State Wildlife Fund or the State Fairgrounds modernization and repair and one other I can't think of now. These are not taxes that we pay, it is a way for a voluntary donation to State supported public use facilities. I do donate annually.

And, I do think the State gets a fair amount of my income and above that I donate a certain amount of my income to those I feel are in need in this world. These are organizations that most of you would call charitable organizations. We can reduce the danger in the world if each person has sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. I feel some responsibility to make that happen.

 

[SomeKid]

moe,

But everytime you get in your car and drive on a public road, or avail yourself of public service...swimming pools, municipal golf courses, public hunting lands, public shooting ranges like I go to for free, police and fire protection, etc, etc, etc we all know those are paid for with taxes.

There are WAY too many services. Governments should not operate pools, golf courses, government schools are a massive waste, you get the idea. Most of your etc etc etc is wasted money. Also, around here, the local government doesn't allow the peasents to use the shooting ranges we biult. The state has a few, but that is a very few.

In my County, more than 50% of the local budget goes to schools. Having been in those schools, I can honestly say that is 50% of the bidget that is just flat wasted.

I personally love buying guns off the net. I got my AR off the net, and saved around 30 bucks thanks to not having to do a sales tax on that gun.

 

[JesseL]

And, I do think the State gets a fair amount of my income and above that I donate a certain amount of my income to those I feel are in need in this world. These are organizations that most of you would call charitable organizations. We can reduce the danger in the world if each person has sufficient food, shelter, and clothing. I feel some responsibility to make that happen.

There is a world of difference between feeling a personal responsibility to help others and deciding that your priorities are important enough to justify stealing from others to support your goals.

Last time I checked, The United Way never threatened to imprison me if I didn't cough up a percentage of my income to them every April.

As for public services (roads, garbage collection, police, fire, etc), I don't like being forced to pay the local government monopolies for their services instead of being able to choose from competitive private services.

 

[raz-0]

As far as the people who say we are wasting so much tax money on welfare if you read the stats I think you will find that is a very small proportion of the public tax bill. Look, however, at what so-called national defense costs.

Thanks for volunteering.
Ok, 2004 Defnse spending... 436 billion, 2005 443 billion. that's witha war going on.

Medicare, medicade, and social security combined..

2004 938 billion. 2005 990 billion.

So yeah, unsustainable social programs are a REALLY small outlay in comparison to the budget.


( http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables.html )

Do you get your budget info from watching flash animations done by the ben and jerry's guy? They ignore about 99 oreos hanging off screen there and then seem to think universal helath care and fully funded education will cost less than one billion dollars.

If you go back to 2000 ( http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy02/pdf/budget.pdf ) you can see that the ratio then was 300 billion for defense, and 775 billion for medicare, medicaid, and social security. If you are talking poor people welfare, like income asssitance, nutrition assistance, TANF, EITC, housing credits, etc, then it was in the neighborhood of 206 billion dollars for 2000.

About the only marginally correct assertion people make about the budget is that education doesn't get a lot of money. Like defense it is on the discreitonary side of the budget, and is about 50 billion each year. there is, however, a lott of waste there.

 

[gezzer]

By the way, our forefathers did not have the tea party strictly against tax, IMHO, it was against being taxed without representation.

Being taxed with representation is freaking worse in this day.

You folks actually have to pay your State money to spend your own money? What moron thought that one up and how did you get sucked into it?

 

[moewadle]

I didn't get

sucked into anything. Are you intentionally trying to be rude and insulting? I thought this was The High Road where people can have honest disagreements without being insulting.

 

[Otherguy Overby]

Actually, how did the rest of us get sucked into this situation? State taxation of goods in interstate commerce. There's gotta be a law somewhere the states are violating...