Thursday, January 5, 2017

Everybody Hates Taxes

In general, the whole process of paying taxes is unpleasant.  You have to keep records, fill out forms, maybe pay someone to do it and at the end of the day your reward is you get to pay taxes.

Now of course for many of us, we pay them all along and get something back at the end, making it a free loan to the Government.

Of course the fact that taxes are so hated almost universally makes them an easy target to attack as being too high.

Add to that exposes about Government waste and people who game the system and its a tough system to defend.

Of course we still pay them because the bottom line is that taxes pay for the Government we have.

Not all of it, we have to finance some of it, which will require future taxes to pay off.

One of the things talked about by the new administration is tax reform and how they are miraculously reduce taxes while building lots of infrastructure and increasing defense spending.  There were also promises to not touch social security, Medicare and veterans benefits.

Of course this tax reduction would then have to gut most other federal programs, although there is some belief that increased economic activity will still lead to increase taxes overall despite the reductions.

This has been referred to as supply side economics or voodoo economics, whatever you prefer.

It can actually work in certain economic conditions, unfortunately the country is not experiencing the conditions it would need. 

It would actually be nice if we could have some real tax reform where the system was non-complex and still funded the Government adequately.

It would also be nice if every day was sunny and it only rained late at night.

I can dream can't I?

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