The Taxman Cometh... and We Payeth And Payeth and Payeth

An interesting email was sent to me recently by a friend that purported to list out all of the taxes Americans are subject to. Of course, I was familiar with many of them including:

- Federal income taxes
- State income taxes
- Sales taxes
- Property taxes
- Social Security payroll taxes
- Medicare taxes
- Telephone excise taxes
- Gasoline taxes
- Estate/Death taxes
- Hotel/motel taxes
- Rental car taxes
- Other excise taxes

However, his email showed that I was quite restrictive compared to the government taxes and fees (another form of taxation but with a different name given to it by the political class to make it seem more palatable) I did not know about or forgot about:

- Ad valorem taxes
- Cigarette taxes
- Corporate income taxes
- Federal unemployment taxes
- Gross receipts taxes
- Alcohol taxes
- State unemployment taxes
- Telephone Universal Service fees
- Inventory taxes
- Business equipment taxes
- Telephone surcharge taxes
- Utility taxes
- Sewer taxes
- Water taxes
- Hunting licenses
- Dog/pet licenses
- Fishing licenses
- School taxes
- Toll road tolls
- Marriage taxes
- Food license taxes
- Building permit taxes
- Commercial driver's license taxes
- Airline gate taxes
- Tire recycling fees
- Gift tax
- Homes sales tax (Obama Care)
- Medical devices tax (Obama Care)
- Home sales tax (Obama Care)
- Other Obama Care taxes
- Professional license fees (hair stylists, doctors, dentists, etc.)

In fact, these two lists are still not all inclusive. Do a few Internet searches and you end up with dozens, if not hundreds, of other taxes and fees including the infamous Septic Tank Field tax.

Wow. In previous posts we have reported  on how different tax policy and consumer organizations have come to the same conclusions:

1. Most Americans work for more than half the year to pay for government functions, taxes, fees, and regulations.
2. Most American households now pay more in taxes each year than they pay for food, shelter, and gasoline COMBINED.

And some politicians still think that Americans are not taxed enough, that if there was just some more taxes paid to our governments and political class, all of our problems would be resolved. Given the lists above and the analyses that shows how much we pay in taxes already, it is obvious to anyone, except our politicians, that America has an excessive government spending and waste problem, not an under taxation problem.

And it is not as if the politicians are efficient with the wealth they confiscate from us today:

• Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid programs waste/lose over a hundred billion dollars a year, possibly up towards two hundred billion a year, through fraud, waste, and criminal enterprises.
• Recent news reports indicate that the Federal unemployment insurance program has lost at least $19 billion over the past year or so through fraud, more than 10% of its entire budget.
• The Federal government recently wasted over half a billion dollars by not doing its due diligence on a California solar energy company when the company went bankrupt and took the taxpayer Federal loan guarantee money with it.
• The Federal government continues to operate numerous military weapons initiatives that are either no longer needed, can be done by cheaper technologies, or are behind schedule or are way over budget, easily wasting tens of billions of dollars a year.
• The Federal government continues to unnecessarily deploy almost 200,000 U.S. troops around the world (Europe, South Korea, Japan, Iraq) to serve historic needs that no longer exist, wasting upwards of $40 billion a year.
• Federal government civilian employment levels are almost 250,000 people higher than it has ever been, an increase in government size that has not resulted in better government service. This unnecessary increase in Federal employment, if reversed, could save about $20 billion a year.

You get the idea, this list of waste is also certainly not all inclusive. The political class, at all government levels, wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year, trillions of dollars over a decade, and they want more money from us via taxes and fees. Give me a break.

In light of the list of taxes and the list of waste, Step 1 from "Love my Country, Loathe My Government" becomes so important. Step 1 would reduce Federal government spending by 10% a year for five years, forcing the political class to clean up waste, eliminate fraud, terminate redundancy, and focus on a smaller set of of only the most important issues facing Americans.

You should not put a new heating system into a house that leaks air everywhere. You should not raise taxes and give it to a government that leaks fraud, waste, and political patronage everywhere. You patch the house leaks before putting the new heating system in. You patch government dysfunctionality before giving it more wealth to waste, if then.

Politicians need to remember two basic facts of life. When they tax us, it is our wealth and our hard work that created it, it is not theirs or their rights to it. They are entrusted with our tax dollars, not entitled to our tax dollars. Second, there cannot be political and personal freedom without economic freedom. If you are overwhelmed by an onerous tax burden, you cannot be free or live a life of liberty.



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available, at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com/