Taxes Will Be the Death of Us As a Nation

I posted this note on FaceBook a few weeks ago. I wanted to post it here. I will post all the comments from there here following:

Taxes. In the USA, they are going to go up significantly in the next few years. Our deficit will dictate it. As Americans, we already pay, on average, over 50% of what we earn as one tax or another (Federal Income, Excise, State Income, Sales, Property, Fuel, etc.). That's just the direct taxes that we pay. We also indirectly pay the taxes for all of our suppliers, because they just pass the costs on in the form of higher prices and additional fees.

The Congress and the President will probably try to hide the new taxes that are coming by telling us that they are taxing the "fat-cat" corporations. If you don't realize that YOU are paying those taxes, you need some education in economics.

You also need an education in economics if you believe the malarky that Obama and Pelosi are currently spouting about how the government needs to take over health care in order to help the recovery. Spending money will not solve our biggest problem: our deficit. You and I will have to pay that bill, and sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, that will probably kill any recovery that might start.

The Great Depression was not resolved by the spending of the FDR administration. We came out because a very nervous world started buying raw materials and manufactured products from American businesses in preparation for the war they saw coming. We have, regettably, sold our birthright by offshoring our manufacturing.

We are currently offshoring our creation of intellectual property too, leaving us, as a nation, with little to offer the world in order to get the income we need to defray our expenses. Somehow, we need to stop the short-term thinking of corporate management that keeps dismantling our revenue-producing infrastructure in favor of improvement on quarterly balance sheets.

On the government side, the expenses just keep escalating with a President and Congress who have no sense of fiscal responsibility and nothing to keep them in check. As a people, we have to stop the demagoguery and let our voices be heard that the situation is unacceptable.