Posted on 04/07/2002 11:13:42 PM PDT by ElephantMan
Un-Freakin-Believable
Pathetic
Warning: SOCIALIST PSYCHOBABBLE FOLLOWS...
"It is a source of great satisfaction to me to be writing an introduction to our newsletter again. For all the years of my life I have heard \"important people\" lament their high taxes. As the CEO of a corporation still more \"important people\" keep me well informed as to the arcane methods used to reduce tax liability. For the first fifty or sixty years of this I agreed with them. About thirty years ago I raised the question with myself about what my low taxes were bringing me. Today more than ever before, this is a supremely important question. So let's take a look at what we're getting!
We get an appallingly bad educational system.
The Colleges and Universities that train teachers do a very bad job. They have a strange and, in my opinion, twisted view of education. The Universities (and Academe in general) think and teach that University or College Professors who teach the most glamorous subjects should obviously be paid the most. When one stops to realize that people learn more in the first twelve years of their lives than in all the rest of their lives put together, the notion of paying a University professor more and educating them more than K through 6 teachers becomes a nonsense idea.
Give a person in the first twelve years (through the sixth grade) absolutely top teaching by teachers skilled not only in the subjects they teach their charges but consummately skilled and trained in pedagogy and the children they teach will navigate the more narrowly defined and circumscribed subjects of the advanced grades with astonishing ease. However, since there are many more of them this would tend to increase taxes not lower them, and we can't have that.
We still do not understand how eager to learn and how gifted the average young person is. The result of our steadfastly maintained ignorance is that we cheat children who look to us to teach them the culture of the world. Do we thereby open the doors of their understanding such that they might make considered choices when they decide what their life's work might be. However, if we keep our ignorance up our taxes will stay gratifyingly low.
So first we cheat the students by failing to train and prepare the best possible teachers for them, then we put them into schools, which are run down, and then put them in classes that are much too large for any reasonable education to take place. Many harassed teachers feel that if they can accomplish a relatively quiet baby-sitting job, that's good. To have 30 to 35 young people in a classroom and expect a teacher to help them become educated is ridiculous. But at least you don't have to pay for yet more teachers and yet more buildings and our taxes stay low---isn't that nice!
We will be pleased to know that, with the cost-cutting measures we have brought about with our lower taxes, those people who serve as Paramedics and EMTs on the ambulance that might be called to save your life or your childs life are held to a nice, comfortable 8 to 15 dollars an hour. They are vastly overworked because, at that pay, they have to have another source of income. Hey! All they do is lie around and save lives. But don't worry we can keep their salaries way way down and our taxes will stay low.
Another menacing threat to our nice low taxes is health care. After all, if someone is so thoughtless as to get fired from their job or is so lacking in ambition and/or intelligence as to be unable to get or hold an honest job they don't deserve to get free care. We work hard for our money and we don't like it when these shiftless deadbeats try to take it away from us just to give them what they should have provided for themselves in the first place. If we stand fast our taxes might even be reduced.
And, of course, the homeless. Why, in the name of God should these shiftless ne'er-do-wells be able to con us out of our hard-earned money. If they didn't prepare themselves they should take the consequences. We can't afford to house these lazy good-for-nothings. They cost us enough already, what with policing them and jailing them and so on. No, keep our taxes down and let these people fend for themselves--- but not at our expense.
This is not by any means a complete list of all the wonderful things that transpire as the result of lower taxes but it is enough to make the point.
It is my belief that we, as individuals, and Corporations, as pseudo people, pay far too little taxes. I also believe that if waste and mismanagement were reduced, and Corporations paid the taxes they should, we might be able to rectify all of the above mistakes at little extra cost.
When we attempt any such radical reforms we should remember the Grace Commission and its report. The message was clear---mismanagement and waste were costing us dear. We did nothing to help ourselves and our sisters and brothers then. When will we learn???
Thanks for reading this,
Charles R. Fulweiler, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer"
(THIS FROM A FREAKIN' CANADIAN OF ALL THINGS...)
...and the education and health care systems are in shambles because we don't throw enough moneyat the problem...ARGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!
I raised the question with myself about what my low taxes were bringing me.
We must . . . End Tax Slavery Now; Nov '97
by Jarret B. Wollstein
HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY PAY?
According to the Tax Foundation, in 1994 the average American paid 22.4% of his or her income in federal taxes, plus 11.8% in state and local taxes - 34.2% total.
But that's just the beginning! Dr. James Payne of the University of California found that in addition to direct taxes we also pay huge, hidden taxes including:
- Compliance costs - record keeping, monies spent on tax planning, computers and software purchased to fulfill IRS requirements, etc.
- Enforcement costs - IRS audits, field investigations, service center corrections, criminal investigations, litigation, and forced collections.
- Emotional, moral and cultural costs - families forced onto welfare, time and creative energy lost figuring out how to avoid taxes, etc.
For every $1 we pay in direct taxes, we spend an additional $0.65 in compliance costs. And even that figure doesn't include the cost of import duties, license fees and other government regulations. For a typical U.S. family, the real cost of taxes and regulations is at least:
Federal taxes 22.4% of income
State & local taxes 11.8%
Compliance costs 22.2%
Regulatory costs 12.7%70.1% of your income is now consumed by government
During this new war our national defenses start with an intact health defense. Paramedic coverage and Emergency Rooms across many juridictions are under prepared for the fight against bioterrorism. Local private physician offices do not have the capability to address community-wide health problems. The small physician offices (which are the only hope to protect patient privacy) do not have the cash flow required to invest in civic health defenses.
The existing Department of Health and Human Services is ill-prepared for this war. Secretary Thompson and Gov. Ridge need to work with National Security leadership to create a better methodology to insure adequate national defense to biological and chemical attack. That defensive strategy needs to use existing primary care offices to build the defenses on biological or chemical attack.
We need to get rid of the N.E.A. to begin with because they are the biggest detriment to better schooling.
We need to elect many more poloticians whose philosiphy is smaller less govt.
If you do the math, you'll see that this amounts to $18,000.00 per student. At that price it's clear that the incompetent nit-wits who run my local government school couldn't teach anyone at twice the price an average school, because the state average in new york is $9,000.00 per student, and we're paying twice the price.
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