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Originally Posted by Kevin68
Actually I have been on 5 continents and to more than a dozen foreign countries...including The Bahamas. I see nothing wrong with a demand for payment for emergency services I use. Here in the US you pay taxes for those services AND you get a bill.
Well, the original topic was federal income taxes so that's what I've been talking about. You were the one who broadened my argument. I sensed you were misunderstanding my position, hence my not-quite-correct attempt to clarify. My taxation-is-theft position is talking about federal income taxes (and would for state income taxes too but they don't apply in my case).
The case for local and state use taxes is stronger because: a) states have more freedom (constitutionally) to experiment with different funding schemes and services, b) if I disagree with the cost-benefit calculation I have a reasonable remedy and c) my representation is more direct and accessible rather than literally one in a million. I think that a supermajority of people would agree that police, fire and emergency services should be a shared expense (despite the fact that I think that privatization of those services can probably be accomplished with better results and at a lower cost). Perhaps the same is true for some local roads...although I live on a private road that my neighbors and I pay to maintain at a far lower cost than the county ever could.
Let me try this, what do you call it when you are forced to turn over a portion of your wages or property to someone who then uses it as they see fit or decides to give to someone else? Is there any legal or moral justification for this?
Happens all the time. How do you think office buildings, apartments, utilities get built? Where do airlines get the money to buy 100 airplanes at a time? How did the railroads get built?
Of course they have to have money to operate. Even the shithole countries you list get their money from somewhere. A VAT at least is distributed in some proportion to your benefit and you have a degree of control over what you pay. I'm not a big fan of a VAT because, at least initially, would stagnate the economy.
The US had no income taxes prior to 1913 and we managed to thrive.
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Well thought out coherent arguments, unlike the other guy in this thread who simply posted this...
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Taxation is theft. Period.
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I took that exactly as he stated it, hence my argument.
I can promise you pay for service EMS does not work for anyone other than the wealthy. I have been consulting in the Bahamas for over a decade. Life outside of the resort areas is much much different. Rolling brownouts daily and their public health system routinely means 3 hour wait times for emergency services. Our system, supported by taxes, is exponentially better.
Boeing et al is able to show prior sales data to walk into a bank and borrow billions. I don't know how they started but gov't assistance is likely in that type of scenario. If you assembled a bunch of aerospace engineers and tried to start a new company, you will not be able to walk in and borrow billions...that is the point I was making.
RE: turning over my money to the system, I am a routine follower of Open the Books and I realize our gov't is broken...beyond repair. As was pointed out earlier, we are supposed to be taxed "with representation" The problem is the greed of man. That is why the average life of an empire is 200 yrs. Most of the GOP are as corrupt at the Left, bc of the money and power they are afforded by working at the fed. Term & lobbying limits would help this considerably, but it would not fix it. As far as moral justification, Christ said "pay to Caesar what is Caesar's." I will do that and continue to vote for lower taxes. I just don't' expect anything for free. I am taxed for public schools and pay $40k+/yr to send my kids to private school...its my choice.
It gets back to the response we give the left...if you don't like it, leave. For better or worse there is still no better place on the planet to live.