{"id":82,"date":"2012-05-18T08:35:20","date_gmt":"2012-05-18T15:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/?p=82"},"modified":"2014-01-24T07:09:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-24T15:09:49","slug":"economics-how-much-do-you-owe-uncle-sam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/economics-how-much-do-you-owe-uncle-sam\/","title":{"rendered":"Economics- How Much Do You Owe Your Government?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde'; color: #000080;\">Economics 101-<\/span> <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\">What the Government Gives and how much it takes&#8230; <strong><em>Without Us Even Knowing it!<\/em><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n<strong style=\"color: #800000;\">A Simple, Inarguable Fact:<\/strong><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong><em>Government gives nothing to anyone without first\u00a0taking it from someone else.<\/em><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0 <strong><em>PERIOD! <\/em><\/strong>\u00a0It can\u2019t give to me, unless it took from you, your family or your friends. \u00a0Whether in the form of taxes, printing money (which devalues what you already have), bonds (that we eventually someone has to pay back, <em>usually, us<\/em>),<span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em> it always takes it from someone.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<strong><em>ALWAYS<\/em><\/strong>! \u00a0 It&#8217;s already creating debt for the children and grandchildren that <em>you don&#8217;t even yet have!<\/em> \u00a0It simply can\u2019t give to <em>me\u00a0or anyone<\/em> unless it took from you, your family, or your friends.<\/p>\n<p>The desire of our politicians to \u201c<strong><em>give<\/em><\/strong>\u201d us things and be rewarded with re-election, has become so profoundly out of control, that they have run up an astronomical debt<strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\"> <em>for me, for you for\u00a0your children, my children and yes even our grandchildren!<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong><em>Politicians Love to Give&#8230; But\u00a0what did they they give us?<\/em><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nDebt!\u00a0 A mountain of debt, the likes of which has never before been seen in the history of man (thanks?).\u00a0 Me, you, my kids, your kids, each and every single one of us <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>at this very moment OWES<\/em> about $189,000 dollars each!<\/span><\/strong> \u00a0This according to the NY Post Jan 29, 2012&#8230; <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know about you, but I don&#8217;t remember, signing an IOU.\u00a0 Neither did my kids, but my kids and your kids are going to have to pay it.\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t about time that we stop this insanity, by holding our politicians accountable???<\/p>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde';\">Wait!<\/span><\/em>\u00a0 I forgot&#8230;. We can always just increase the taxes on the rich.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0 That should take care of it, right?\u00a0 <strong><em>Wrong<\/em><\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p>Whether we like it or not, <strong><em>taxes CANNOT <\/em><\/strong>solve the problem<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong><em>An inconvenient truth&#8230;<\/em><\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nIf\u00a0 the government imposed a <strong>100% tax<\/strong> on people making over $250K<br \/>\n<strong>AND<\/strong> confiscated <strong><em><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">all<\/span><\/em><\/strong> last year&#8217;s profits of ALL Fortune 500 companies<br \/>\n<strong><em>AND <span style=\"color: #800000;\">TOOK<\/span> ALL<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0assets of the top 400 billionaires&#8230;<br \/>\n<em><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">we would still only fund our government for 8 months!<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>and then, <span style=\"color: #800000;\">WHO and <\/span><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">WHAT\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"color: #800000;\">is left to tax?? \u00a0(see new article re &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/?p=181\" target=\"_blank\">the disappearing rich<\/a>&#8220;<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>OK, so increasing the taxes on the rich won&#8217;t fix it, but&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Well, we should at least, make them <strong><em>pay their fair share shouldn&#8217;t we?<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em>OK, I agree&#8230;<\/em><\/span> but what&#8217;s fair.\u00a0 <strong><em>Here are the facts&#8230; <\/em><\/strong>\n<ul>\n<li>The top 5% of earners pay well over <em><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>half<\/strong> of all<\/span><\/em> federal Income\u00a0taxes.<\/li>\n<li>The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay <span style=\"color: #800000;\">almost <strong><em>no federal<\/em><\/strong><\/span> income taxes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong>So, if we are really\u00a0worried about fair, shouldn&#8217;t the top 5% pay less and the bottom 50% pay more?<\/strong><\/span><\/em> \u00a0<em>Of course not!<\/em> \u00a0<span style=\"color: #993300;\"><strong>This is not by any means what I am advocating,<\/strong> I&#8217;m just pointing out the absurdity of the\u00a0rampant shouts of &#8220;fair share!&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span> This is nothing but despicable demagoguery.\u00a0 It is a lie perpetrated in the hopes of winning an election by stirring up sentiments of class warfare.\u00a0<strong><em>\u00a0<span style=\"color: #800000;\">It might win an election, but it will destroy the country. <\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The class warfare that some politicians are espousing, may sound good to some, but putting in place the increased tax policies they promote for the purposes of lowering\u00a0budget deficits <span style=\"color: #800000;\">will\u00a0<strong><em>accomplish even worse than nothing<\/em><\/strong><\/span>, and and our liberal politicians know it.\u00a0 This creates is vicious a cycle that has repeated itself over and over in the US and all over the world&#8230; <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><em>look at Europe, Greece, Spain, France, etc&#8230;<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>We Have to do Something. Right? \u00a0<\/strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em>Yes, but shouldn&#8217;t we make sure it doesn&#8217;t make things worse?<\/em><\/span><br \/>\nChoices have Consequences, many, of which are unanticipated.<br \/>\nDramatically increased taxes, in the short term, always generates a quick budgetary\u00a0 windfall,<em> but what then?<\/em>\u00a0 Increased taxes also, ALWAYS puts <em>pressure on the job creators, the business owners<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>In simple terms it means<span style=\"color: #800000;\"> less profit to them<\/span>, which leads to<span style=\"color: #800000;\"> cost cutting<\/span>, which means <span style=\"color: #800000;\">layoffs<\/span>, which means more people on unemployment, which means more expenses to the government, which means that want to increase taxes AGAIN, to cover their increased costs!&#8230; This is all in addition to the fact that many companies simply <em><span style=\"color: #800000;\">go out of business<\/span>&#8230;<\/em>\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><em>That then reduces the tax base and government revenues AGAIN&#8230;<\/em><\/strong><\/span> That doesn&#8217;t sound like economic recovery&#8230;<em><span style=\"color: #800000;\"> It actually\u00a0results in&#8230;<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>fewer workers,<\/li>\n<li>causing increased unemployment and required social aid,<\/li>\n<li>increased government expenses<\/li>\n<li><em><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">but<\/span><\/strong> fewer workers<\/em> means an even <strong><em>smaller<\/em><\/strong> tax base,<\/li>\n<li>which means <em>even<\/em> <strong><em>lower<\/em><\/strong> revenues to the government,<\/li>\n<li>so less income to the government&#8230;<\/li>\n<li>Means a larger budget deficit&#8230;<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Which means we <strong><em>need another tax increase?!&#8230;\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde'; color: #003366;\">Does that sound familiar?\u00a0 Isn&#8217;t that how we got here in the first place?<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>This is Government \u00a0and\u00a0bureaucracy in Action&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nDo what sounds good, makes the most people happy (<em>&#8217;til after the election<\/em>), take the credit for doing &#8220;something&#8221;, getting re elected for doing such a &#8220;great&#8221; job; (<span style=\"color: #993366;\"><em>the hell with the long term consequences<\/em><\/span>)&#8230; and <em><strong>then<\/strong><\/em> when it doesn&#8217;t improve or gets even worse? \u00a0Blame the other political party&#8230; after all, the only reason it&#8217;s not fixed is &#8220;they didn&#8217;t let me do more!&#8221; \u00a0Sound familiar? \u00a0Both political parties do it&#8230; but for Liberal politicians it has become an art form.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, I may have just offended a hundred thousand or more democratic voters. \u00a0For that I&#8217;m sorry. \u00a0But the truth is the truth&#8230; And nothing I&#8217;ve said so far is even remotely an opinion. \u00a0It&#8217;s pure fact.<\/p>\n<p>The usual big government, higher tax solution is logically unsustainable. \u00a0 Higher taxes diminishes wealth, costs businesses, costs jobs, lowers the tax base, which lowers tax revenues, which causes budget deficits that creates the motivation for more taxes, which diminishes wealth, which lowers the tax base even more, etc&#8230; \u00a0<span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong><em>If this country is going to survive as the land of opportunity, we have to stop the\u00a0Insanity!<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em>Whatever the solutions may be, one thing is certain&#8230; <strong>Increasing Taxes is not it!<\/strong><\/em><\/span><br \/>\nThe above is not a hypothetical.\u00a0 Just look to Europe.\u00a0 This was the road they followed.\u00a0 They tried to solve all social ills by creating a Utopia of\u00a0entitlements\u00a0and increased taxes on the wealthy.\u00a0 <strong><em>Take from the rich and give to the poor.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 The result has been an unsustainable tax burden, destruction of businesses and jobs&#8230; A never ending race to keep up with an unsustainable burden of debt and social entitlement. \u00a0The burden of taxes and business regulations are destroying wealth while at the same time, increasing the dependency of the people; a sense of entitlement that the government should provide for everything!<\/p>\n<p>Since no government can give without first taking from someone else, what happens when government <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em>can&#8217;t just take more?<\/em><\/span>\u00a0 What happens when there are no more rich to tax because the government has either taken it all, or they&#8217;ve left? \u00a0 What happens when the government has to reduce what it &#8220;<span style=\"color: #800000;\"><em>gives<\/em><\/span>&#8221; to the people, because there is no one else from whom to take? \u00a0What happens when a society has been transformed to one in which, there is no longer <em><strong>gratitude<\/strong> <\/em>for the assistance provided to them because they <em><strong>needed it.<\/strong><\/em>.. \u00a0to a society in which the recipients of government largess believe they have a right to a check, just because they are breathing? \u00a0When a majority of the members of a society are either unaware or simply <strong><em>don&#8217;t care<\/em><\/strong> that every penny they receive from the government was taken out of the pockets of their neighbors, you have a society that is in decline. \u00a0A society bereft of personal responsibility or ambition; a citizenry \u00a0on a non stop search for a hand out rather than a needed hand up. \u00a0 What happens when instead of being thankful, for temporary assistance, there is a sense of entitlement, a feeling that the &#8220;government&#8221; (i.e. their friends and neighbors) have an obligation to let them sit on their couch watching TV, while others work, having their earning confiscated by the government to support the slovenly lifestyle they seem to believe is a God given right bestowed upon them by their local congressman?<\/p>\n<p>There is no longer a need to speculate, now we know&#8230; Just look at Greece, riots in the streets! \u00a0The result of government assistance run\u00a0amok.<\/p>\n<p>Europe&#8217;s attempt to solve all problems with tax increases and more social entitlement spending has led to chaos and ultimately riots.\u00a0 <em><span style=\"color: #800000;\">It has and will do the same in the US, if not checked.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">Understand, I\u00a0believe\u00a0in a social safety net. \u00a0I believe in helping those who can&#8217;t help themselves. \u00a0I believe in a hand up. \u00a0I even believe in an\u00a0occasional\u00a0<em>handout<\/em>. \u00a0However, I don&#8217;t believe in taking my or your hard earned money, to support someone who <em><strong>can<\/strong> <\/em>work&#8230; but simply prefers to let you and I support him. \u00a0When we do so, I really don&#8217;t believe we are helping them. \u00a0As said by Ronald Reagan \u00a0&#8220;You do no man a favor by doing for him, that which he can and should do for himself&#8230;. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\">When we do this, we make economic and emotional cripples who will never reach their full potential as human beings.. \u00a0As was said by Cavett Robert, &#8220;He who cuts his own firewood, is twice warmed&#8221;.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Anyway we slice it, <span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong><em>this country does not have a revenue or tax problem<\/em><\/strong><\/span>. \u00a0It is <span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde'; color: #800000;\"><strong><em>impossible<\/em><\/strong><\/span> for tax increases to solve our problems.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde'; color: #000080;\">No matter what a personal political persuation&#8230;<\/span><br \/>\nFacts are facts, numbers are numbers&#8230; no matter how much we may\u00a0<em>like <\/em>to believe that if we just taxed Bill Gates more, we&#8217;d be fine, IT JUST IS NOT TRUE&#8230;\u00a0 <em>As shown above, if we took ALL the money from the rich, we&#8217;d still sink.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000; font-family: 'arial black', 'avant garde';\"><strong>The US <em>does not<\/em> have a tax issue&#8230; IT HAS A SPENDING ISSUE.<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nTrue solutions do exist. We&#8217;ll discuss many possibilities in other articles, but it&#8217;s important to know that none involve throwing grandma off a cliff.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>The first step?<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nDecisions must be made \u00a0 We have to start looking at and making decisions based on the short term and even more importantly, the <em>long term<\/em><strong> consequences of \u00a0those decisions;\u00a0<\/strong><em>not just based on what feels or sounds good for the next election.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #003366;\"><strong>Second Step?<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\nThe insanity of politics must stop.<br \/>\nThe political parties don&#8217;t have to agree, but our politicians <strong>must <\/strong><em>stop playing games, stop lying and start talking about actual solutions.\u00a0 Get rid of the class warfare and get rid of the insanity! \u00a0It&#8217;s time to stop being US <strong>politicians<\/strong> and start being engaged US <strong>citizens<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>For more information on economics please <a title=\"Basics of Economics\" href=\"http:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.com\/cgi-bin\/d2.cgi\/1000\/economics101.htm\" target=\"_blank\">see\u00a0 Economics101<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Whether you agree or disagree, comment at the <a href=\"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\" target=\"_blank\">ASN Blog.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Economics 101- What the Government Gives and how much it takes&#8230; Without Us Even Knowing it! A Simple, Inarguable Fact: Government gives nothing to anyone without first\u00a0taking it from someone else.\u00a0 PERIOD! \u00a0It can\u2019t give to me, unless it took from you, your family or your friends. \u00a0Whether in the form of taxes, printing money [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics-101"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2EGlL-1k","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10560,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions\/10560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allsolutionsnetwork.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}