All told, federal taxpayers last year received $1.08 trillion in credits, deductions and other perks while paying $1.09 trillion in income taxes, according to government estimates.
Only about 8 percent of those benefits went to corporations. (The write-off for corporate jets equals about .03 percent of the total.) The bulk went to private households, primarily upper-middle-class families that Obama has vowed to protect from new taxes.
The number of people who actually pay federal taxes is a disgrace. I don’t believe that taxes should add an undue burden on those who are struggling to get by – but they should at least pay *something*, even if it’s only $10, $20 or $50 a year. As things currently stand, there are enough people who are not paying anything into the system (and please, let’s not get into fuel taxes, communication taxes, etc.) that they can vote tax increases on the remaining percentage of the American population and be assured of passage, while they themselves remain exempt from having to pay the IRS.
My family is fortunate enough, through 30+ years of hard work and savings, to be fiscally sound. And as I look around at my neighbors and their new-every-2-year cars (I still drive a 2000 Ford Expedition), read about all the people writing off credit card debt (I’ve always paid mine each month) and walking away from mortgages (after making a 20% down payment, I had to PAY $30,000 to sell my house back in the housing downturn of 1988) I can’t help but feel that honesty, hard work and thrift are values which have completely disappeared from America.
If I knew of a country that would accept me as an immigrant and had values like those handed down to me by my parents, my grandparents and great-grandparents, I’d be on a plane tomorrow. I love America – but I feel that I no longer belong here.
Uh Clint, the election in 2012 might serve to reveal how many others feel similar to the way you do. If the current, socialist-inclined administration, gets another 4 years, that will tell us a lot. If they don’t and get landslided, that will tell them a lot. Unlike you who can’t find another country like the one America used to be like, they will be able to find a whole continent to their liking….it’s called “Europe”.