Why is everybody on forums against more tax?

Question

When I was younger, I had a vision that everyone would live in eco-homes and save energy, that the rail service would run to every town at 200 miles an hour and be really cheap. That schools would be fantastic and creative, that medicine would have cured most ills and we would be living longer. I looked forward to towns and cities being clean and beautiful with more trees and parks and that everyone would be peaceful and crime very low.

Instead we have everyone individually buying cars and stopping each other from travelling, improving their houses in a hundred different ways - most of which aren't improvements at all, getting away from everybody else, not working together etc.etc. It's not the same in the Scandinavian countries - they pay higher taxes and working together have brought themselves the highest living standards in the world.

Answer 1

In theory I have nothing against paying more tax. It's just seeing how they waste my money NOW that puts me off the idea

Answer 2

Your dream sounds very nice, but it is a dream.



I have spent time in Sweden, and studied the lifestyles, the taxes, the crime and the housing.

Worked there for 6 months. It is a lovely country. The government takes very good care of their children and old people, and that is to be commended. But the tax burden on the workers is overwhelming. To put it quite simply, they tried to make it so all people end up in about the same income, (15 years ago it was about $35k a year). So whether you were a research scientist or a waiter, you made the same amount of money. To do this, the research scientist would pay 50-70% income tax. Then, he would still have to pay the exhorbitant food tax, called moms, that was about 25%. Instead of hard work and higher education being rewarded with more money, they are discouraged with higher taxes. My sister and brother in law lived and worked there. They left when they got to a 90% tax rate, and came back to the states to run their businesses.



When I was working there, I noticed that women were very very very spoiled and lazy, worse than anywhere I have ever been. A woman of child bearing age has a pretty cushy life if they stay home and have kids. They actually get paid for this by the government. So as workers, they were the worst.



Most of the people I met were good people, doing their best in the life they had. There was little crime, good education, and excellent retiree care. But the medical system was a nightmare. My sister had possible skin cancer, and it would have been three years on a waiting list to see a doctor, so she had to leave the country to get it checked out. Emergency care was good, and so was long term (nursing homes), but doctors were near impossible to get into, and not in rural areas at all. Surgeons were nearly impossible to get appointments with. So, it kind of shows, the lower paying jobs (nursing care, eldercare, childcare) did well, but the higher paying medical careers were desperately lacking in employees. Why would you work for $35k a year when you could go to Germany, the UK, The USA and make hundreds of thousands of dollars?



The other thing that was disturbing to me was the fact that 1/3 of the country was employed by the government, overseeing what the rest of the people were doing. Its like the government are the parents. They don't allow chrushed red pepper for your pizza, don't have junk food, don't have more than two choices for food selections in the grocery store, and one is the socialist brand, sort of a generic. Any behavior they don't want, they tax at exhorbitant rates, like alcohol. But it doesn't stop the kids from spending hteir whole paycheck at the bar on Friday night, because you cannot get evicted from your socialist housing, and you will have food. Its like a liberal parent in some ways, because sex is very open and not something that is even thought of as preserved for marriage.



I came back to the states with many new penpals, a few of whom I still correspond with. And a sense of gratitude that I live in a free country. Here, I can work hard and be rewarded for it. I can move where I want, own land, have my choice of car, be involved in whatever movements I care to, and still be environmentally responsible.



If you really like this way of life, move to a city that embraces your dream. For me, its a small town, and a lifestyle that is less wasteful and more productive. America is great because it is free. Socialism (aka higher taxes) takes away many of the freedoms, penalizes achievers and rewards the lazy. Now, where would you rather live?

Answer 3

Well your dream was shattered because under the current tax system, all those high earners pay less so that they have more money to squander on products that destroy the worlds Eco system and their petty selfish lives. I know I sound like I'M bitter but I have seen and lived amongst these people and they do not deserve the high earnings that much I can tell you, the real hard working people get paid a pittance and nothing more.



You only have to look at recent history to see that the rift between those with and those without was made wider by one person who shall remain nameless and it wasn't anyone from the current administration either.



If you want to redress this differential, either the high wage earners need to take pay cuts or pay the lower wage earners more to bring them in line with the higher wage earner or the higher wage earner needs to pay more tax so that your utopia can exist.



In reality that wont happen because that would put inflation up and the cost of living goes up and then the only people to suffer is the low income family's.

Answer 4

Great question! I assume that "everyone" (meaning the anything-but-random sample of Americans who take part in the forums you mention) is against more taxes, or taxes in general, because of the misguided conception in the U.S. that anything government does is either wasteful or unnecessary. It's true there's a lot of waste in running a country as big as the United States, especially in the military sector, but that's the nature of an undertaking as vast as governing the most powerful nation on earth. Fortunately, the U.S. is rich enough to tolerate a bit of slippage (e.g., the so-called "welfare queens") while still having resources to provide its populace with a good standard of living. What the American public doesn't understand is that by European standards we are both undertaxed and underserved, especially in the area of health care. It is disgraceful that the U.S. stands alone among industrialized nations as the only one without universal health care. But that would mean an increase in taxes, heaven forbid...

Answer 5

It's simple: you have based your proposal on false principles. Paying higher taxes do not necessarily means higher quality of life.

For example crime is more close to urbanism than economic inequality (from your question derives: lesser inequality, higher taxes, more quality of life)



Quote:

...'Correlates of crime

No association was found between indicators of wealth or economic equality and levels of overall crime. High crime countries include both relatively affluent countries (Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands) and some of the least affluent (Poland, Estonia). The category of low crime countries is equally diverse. It includes both relatively affluent countries, such as Austria, and less prosperous ones, such as Hungary and Portugal. Within the European context, levels of common crime seem to be neither associated with poverty nor with national wealth.

Other macro factors known to be associated with levels of common crime are urbanisation and the proportion of young adolescents in the population (Van Dijk, 1999)...'



You can check the whole report here:



http://www.unicri.it/wwd/analysis/icvs/pdf_files/EUICS%20-%20The%20Burden%20of%20Crime%20in%20the%20EU.pdf



But in other problem is you’ll also need a central and very efficient government responsible of everything. This has proven unrealistic so far and there are many examples of centralized economies that proven a total failure, much more than open market economies.



On the other hand you used as example Scandinavia, which I believe you can't use as example.



Why? Simple if you look in the CIA factbook



Norway:

Pop:4,627,926

Oil - production:

3.22 million bbl/day (2005 est.)

Oil - consumption:

244,300 bbl/day (2004 est.)

Oil - exports:

3.018 million bbl/day (2004)

Oil - imports:

91,930 bbl/day (2004)

GDP (purchasing power parity):

$213.6 billion (2006 est.)

GDP (official exchange rate):

$264.4 billion (2006 est.)

Area:

total: 323,802 sq km

land: 307,442 sq km

water: 16,360 sq km



If you put together all those facts you will understand that Scandinavian countries' high quality of life comes from more than higher taxes.

It comes for very low population density in combination with addressing issues faster and maybe better.





Country Pop Area Density

Norway 4,627,926 307,442 15

Denmark 5,468,120 42,394 129

Sweden 9,031,088 410,934 22

Scandinavia19,127,134 760,770 166



UK 60,776,238 241,590 252



Can you spot the difference?



Another example than higher taxes are not the solution for everything is that we will see that whilst analysing the Human Develop Index that Norway is on top (very high taxes, very low density) Denmark is on place 15th below USA, Japan and Ireland (8th, 7th and 4th respectively) even when Denmark taxes are higher.

Because the reasons mentioned before I don't believe than paying higher taxes is the solution for a better country or a better life; however I think that addressing the issues on time, reducing bureaucracy, giving more freedom to people and incentive the people's collaboration towards common objectives through the use of mechanisms based on real needs and entrepreneurial participation along with higher independence for local authorities so they can approach local solutions faster and more efficient is a much better solution than just higher taxes. Thats why!



Bye

Answer 6

It would be OK paying more tax if we all earned fair wages and don't forget that a big majority of people in the UK live off of borrowed money anyway....probably most of us would agree to higher taxes if we were guaranteed to get what we were promised from it but thats the problem....our government employs people in unnecessary jobs wasting the tax payers money...we import labour to do the mundane jobs while our own unemployed sit around (another waste of taxpayers money) we have employers paying pathetic wages which discourages people from wanting to work...there are lots of problems in this country and it will be a long time before your dream can be realised

Answer 7

actually government services are second rated in america. All we need is people to take responsibily for themselves and we wouldnt need large governments. right now we have a large inefficient government. they tax highly for ineffiecent services. Business is what drive prices down- all governments has managed to do is the opposite. As for the scandinavian living standard being higher well each person pays for it. its a choice between being rich or comfortable. The scandinavian has chosen comfort over being rich.

Answer 8

I agree with a slightly higher tax rate in some form but also agree with Bongo Mandela. The tax and lottery money often seem to have been spent unsatisfactorily. I think the public should have far more say in the distribution of funds.

Answer 9

Because there are too many of them... and they are all for stupid reasons...



Next they're gonna put a counter round your head and tax you for the amount of air you breathe... and tax you for how many times you sh't in the toilet...



I'm sorry to say but I wish that your vision could come true... But with the way things are... Our British government aren't going to make that happen!!!

Answer 10

Then move to Scandinavia.I personally do not feel like paying more taxes.

Answer 11

i wouldnt mind payin more tax if the money was put into good use ..which frankly it aint

Answer 12

because we're all cheap.