How come these committees never report on the spending side of the shortfall of revenue compared to expenditures? Where does the money go? What could be axed, etc.?
A set gas tax, like 28 cents a gallon, eventually falls short as the federal government inflates away the value of money. For example, you have to clear a net income of nearly 1.5 times what you netted in 2000 just to break even! That said, the gas tax should be indexed to inflation.
As for other tax rates that keep rising as a percentage, like sales taxes, that really is government taking ever increasing cuts of our hard earned money. If a 10% sales tax was good ten years ago, it should be good now as everything has risen in price according to inflation. Government, however, never has enough and won’t stop eating up our wealth until we taxpayers stop them. The problem there are all the voters who believe in stealing from their neighbors simply because government makes it easy.
BTW, government and taxes are essential to a civilized society. The problem is how to restrain them from taking more than what is needed.
A set gas tax, like 28 cents a gallon, eventually falls short as the federal government inflates away the value of money. For example, you have to clear a net income of nearly 1.5 times what you netted in 2000 just to break even! That said, the gas tax should be indexed to inflation.
As for other tax rates that keep rising as a percentage, like sales taxes, that really is government taking ever increasing cuts of our hard earned money. If a 10% sales tax was good ten years ago, it should be good now as everything has risen in price according to inflation. Government, however, never has enough and won’t stop eating up our wealth until we taxpayers stop them. The problem there are all the voters who believe in stealing from their neighbors simply because government makes it easy.
BTW, government and taxes are essential to a civilized society. The problem is how to restrain them from taking more than what is needed.