The answer isn't lowering taxes any more than the answer is raising taxes...
The answer is a fair and simple tax code.
I'll know that we're close when H & R Block is no longer a household name.
The resources we spend to do the fucking yearly paperwork to live in this country makes us look stupid.
Fair and simple? Simple isn't fair
of course it is.
everyone pays the same percentage of their income period
But does everyone get the same amount of services? No
It's like going into a restaurant and everyone pays the same to eat. Yet one person gets a great meal, and someone else gets rubbish.
You really cant base tax on service. If you really wanted to base the tax code on that you would have the poor who use the vast majority of government services paying far more than the rich were.
And no, it is a false narrative that the rich use more government than the poor.
A simple tax code is the only way that it can be fair. There is no measure for government services like access to protected rights, national security and jails. Right now we have the poor paying a larger share of their income than the rich to the federal government. True simplification of the tax code will benefit not only the middle class but the poor as well. It will hose the uber rich as they are the ones that have been manipulating the code to benefit special interests.
It always amazes me that some claim simplifying the tax code will hurt the middle class and poor but then complain that Romney pays a smaller percentage than his secretary. The two concepts are entirely at odds.
But the poor don't use the vast amount of services.
You have to remember that BOTH the poor and rich use things like education. You get given an education, the country gets given an educated worked, and a business gets educated workers. So, education isn't all about the individual, it's about the country and it's about making money.
What about infrastructure? Perhaps a person will use the road twice in a day, maybe a little more sometimes. How much are big corporations using the roads? Probably thousands of times a day to ship products, having employees get to work, having managers going from one place to another. All of this benefits business too.
You think about Iraq, how much did the war and post war period cost the US?
One estimate is $1.1 trillion. Who benefited from this? It certainly wasn't the poor. The poor got shot at and killed or maimed. So who made money? Defense contractors, oil companies and shareholders. So, who should be paying for such things?
Who benefits from the stability of the country? Everyone, but the rich are able to get rich from it, so they should be paying their fair share, which is a larger share than your average Joe.\
Look at Somalia, hard to make money and become rich there. Why? There's no security, there's no decent infrastructure.
In Russia in the 1990s the Mafias were basically taking about 30-40% of a company's income just to provide for security. The smaller people needed it less, they had less to steal from, they had less reason to be a target for the mafias. In the US most companies will pay a lot less for security and get everything else for free, basically.
What fair is isn't easy to come by. However it damn well isn't everyone paying the same percentage.
