I don't know how to respond to any of that. What does my age or anything else in there have to do with 'Who Pays the Taxes?' I truly feel bad about your personal experiences, but they are not relevant.
You mentioned FICA and I pointed out to you the aspected of compounded interest upon an investment.
Yes, your age is a factor, since the more time your money is invested, the more you will earn over time.
I was very serious when I asked a rather simple question. If all of your current FICA taxes was invested into a private interest earning account, how much would you have by the time you reached retirement age?
Would this not be much more than Social Security would ever pay you?
On your primary point:
Of course, if you combine a retirement account with your taxes, it will skew the results.
When you complain about someone who is above the current FICA earning limit, did you also realize that they are not allowd to collect any of their FICA contributions upon retirement?
Did you also include their own private retirement investments in your calculations?
Personally, I invest 15% of my wages into my own private retirement account, simply because I realize that FICA will not be around when I retire.
So lets summarize:
27% - Federal and State taxes.
12% - FICA taxes
15% - Private retirement fund
I come up with a sum of 54% of my own personal wages being invested each and every month.
Please remember one other very vital aspect. Since I earn too much money, I do not qualify for any of the government programs. Did you include the money people receive from the government in your equation?
Now, what was that you were saying about the "poor" people?
Let me try one last time. Federal Government - not State. What we pay to the Feds and not what we MAY receive. Because of the CAP on FICA contributions, someone below the CAP is likely to pay a higher Federal (FICA and Income) Tax rate than someone who makes an amount way above the CAP.