Discussion Taxes

[Threads]

How do you feel about how your government spends your money on taxes?

I live in the United States.

This website pretty much sums it up.

https://www.thebalance.com/u-s-federal-budget-breakdown-3305789

I want to leave this more of an open sort of discussion, not just about how the United States spends 59% of its budget on defense and only 1% on food and agriculture. But rather about everything involving taxation and your feelings about it. Is taxation theft? How do you feel about how your taxes are being spent? If you don't like how your taxes are being spent, how would you better improve it?

I'm of the opinion that when the American government gets involved in anything, bloated bureaucracy and red tape prevent any sort of funding from being used adequately.

This is a discussion thread. Quality posting is required. Please do not post anything less than two sentences. Anything less than that will be deleted. This is also potentially a very hot topic, so please be civil.

If you would like more poll choices, please feel free to explain why in this thread.

 

[Xerxes]

I hate that a lot of my taxes goes to benefit things I don't put my trust into. Military could be downsized, and put the remaining soldiers into an education that could fuel the economy and put them back to work. Instead they're deployed to countries that we have no business being in, developing PTSD and other mental problems, and come back with nothing to do. Education, health, environment, housing/community, benefits society and I rather see the 16000 I pay in taxes every year go towards that so my future kids (lol right), family (that too) can get a good education, live healthy, and enjoy the great outdoors.

Instead we're pumping taxpayers money to pad corporate interests such as fracking, private education, coal power, and military entitities. They serve no purpose for the common man, but only for the 1% of society who have jobs in that sector.

 

[Johnnythefox]

I'm probably not the best person to answer this as I no longer watch the news or read a newspaper!
However, here in the UK/Scotland we have an increasing number of people relying on food banks, an increase in homelessness and false figures on unemployment.
We are told there is no magic money tree, yet there is always money for the following:
A warship £3.1 billion
Refurbishment of Parliament £3.9 billion
Refurbishment of Buckingham Palace £369 million
London crossrail £14.8 billion
Cost of the Royals £350 million

There is also talk I think of replacing their nuclear weapons, which are conveniently located not too far from me.
I resent what I have paid into the system being used for weapons of death, being used to fund a bunch of over privileged Fuck tards and being used to fund an ever corrupt system.
Scotch whisky and Scottish oil make a massive amount of revenue, yet we in Scotland continue to be shit upon from on high by the English government!
Scotland are being dragged out of Europe by a bunch of knuckle dragging xenophobes.
We continue to be shafted every day in this country, and I can't believe that the people have not risen up like many countries have done in the past. We have lost our spine in this country and become a nation of flunkies.

vive la revolution

 

[Comatose11]

I think taxes are necessary, but they should be better spent. I'm not happy with so much of my taxes going into national defense. I would prefer it if we put it into health care. We could actually have a good universal health care system. But nope. We do not. I also think it's hilarious when military folks complain about taxes being theft.

 

[TAW122]

I think that given that the public services exist and the infrastructure around the US is the way it is now, is only possible due to taxes (highways, public transport, bridges, garbage collections, etc.). However, I will agree that we do spend too much on the defense budget, just so that we are ahead of the entire world many times over. This may be my bias here, but I believe that if we could take a small portion of that 59% or so spent on defense, but spent on housing, health, food & agriculture, and energy & environment, it would help our society more in the longer run. So instead of 59% spent on defense, maybe 40-50% (max 50%) spent on defense, and then 9-19% reallocated to those four other sectors mentioned would improve our quality of life in the longer run. These are just my two cents and others may/not see it the same way I do.

 

[Lra888]

It's so fucked up how much money goes in to the military in relation to everything else.