Not to worry though. In the next 30 years the chinese will be the new super power. China holds a large percentage of America’s debt. The chinese school kids are 10 times ahead of ours in reading, math, and science. Our grandkids will be immigrating to china to open american food resturaunts as the chinese are doing now.

I work in the private sector. I pay 35% in taxes each pay period. (9% of that goes to heath care premiums) I still manage to put aside 14% of my gross pay in a retirement fund. The company matches up to a certain percent. I don’t live beyond my means. I have less than $200.00 a month credit card charges that are paid off every month. I clip coupons for groceries that I buy for a week at a time. I drive a six year old compact car that gets 30 mpg. I don’t have any expensive habits like tobacco and alcohol. I don’t have the boat, two cars, and a plasma screen tv either. If I don’t have the money to buy it, I don’t buy it.

There is a trap most folks fall into once they obtain a state or government job. They get vested in the system. They get a credit card, max it out. They get another card to pay off the first card. They get a house with a variable interest rate. They buy a boat. Then they buy a truck to pull the boat. Now they have a family, a house, car, truck, and boat payment. Not to mention the additonal credit cards to buy the boat accessories and the plasma screen TV, computer, ipod, cell phones and all the electric toys they can’t live without. Next thing you know there is more going out than coming in to the bank each month. I have two friends that have fallen into this trap. They stuggle but are working their way out of the mess.

State and government employment has an advantage in employment security once you are vested. It’s up to the individual employee’s self disipline on how wisely they use the compensation they receive from that job.

Why is it that when the economy gets bad everyone always turns their anger and resentment toward Government workers. We are YOU….. we are your neighbors, your relatives, your friends, We serve the public for good or bad because we like what we do, knowing that we are doing a good job and serving a purpose. If these bills pass, I will barely have enough to buy food… and if they make us pay for our health insurance, I can almost guarantee that several ‘hundred thousand’ employees throghout the state, this includes county and cities workers (because many are on the same system of retirement and insurance as State employees) will be without health insurance and many, if not most of us will end up on State Assitance…or flooding the Emergency Rooms because we cant afford to pay for a doctor. You may say, “why dont you just go and get another job” easier said than done… Im 50 yrs old, its too late for me to start saving when I was depending on my state retirement (besides my salary was never enough to allow me to save). If I had been at a job all these years making more money and putting toward a 401k, I would have nothing to say… Besides, I can bet that most all of you making passing judgements on us State, City and County workers are making way more than I do and most of us do who are civil servants…..many of you are probably already reitred or work for a company who pays you well…… so tell me how many of you are making less than $30,000 and supporting a family, and now put yourself in our shoes and think how you would feel at facing the prospect of your employee cutting your salary by 15%….because between making us contribute 5% toward our Retirement and another 10 to 12% for our health insurance …. that means someone making $30,000 now would only make $26,000 a year. And you think we State employees have it great…

In this case I agree with most of what you say about taxes. I honestly think that a base rate and kill all deductions may well be the fairest way to go but ain’t nobody gonna really support that (and I know that’s not what you said). As you related on, we all want to cut spending on “them” and not “us”. At the same time we want taxes to be cut for “us”, not necessarily “them”.

I happen to be in my fifties and have worked most of my life. I have paid income,property and sales taxes most of my life. But I never had children. Is it fair for me to pay taxes to send other people’s kids to school.

Well….yes.

Why? Because it is for the greater good of the nation, if the money is well spent. When it’s not (in my opinion) well spent, I gnash my teeth. But I understand that not every dollar is gonna be spent the way I want it to. For example, I would never have anted up to build a single boat ramp. But I know others are in favor of those types of expenditures. So, that’s the thing about taxes. We are never gonna agree about everything.

But maybe it would help us all to remember that. I don’t intend to rant and rave and foam at the mouth about the school taxes or the boat ramps. Maybe we should all look at what we get that others don’t want to pay for.

Of course the true bottom line at the moment *is* the bottom line. We have no money. And we are so far in the hole that it’s no longer about “us” or “them”. My mother, who lives on Social Security security, recently said to me….”we are all gonna have to take a 10%hit, even those Wall Street guys”. Pretty good wisdom for an 80 year old. I mean, we are gonna have to get past “who” gets cut and acknowledge that “all” are gonna have to be cut.

Nice post, Mr Green.Thanks for giving me something worth commenting on.

If you made nothing, you would want to pay nothing.
If you made more than nothing, you would pay something, which is more than you paid when you made less.

Generally people consider it unfair if they go from paying 10% while earning a low income to paying 20% for a higher income to whatever it maxes out at. I don’t consider it fair.

I do tend to think taxes aren’t inherently unfair if they pay for the common good. It’s when they pay for pet projects, for things I think we shouldn’t do in the first place, things which I consider harmful to the American people that I get less happy about my lovely taxes.

It’s an interesting part of human nature that every group thinks the other groups are shafting them. The poorest think the richest should have to pay more because they have more. The richest think they use the same roads so shouldn’t have to pay more of what they worked for to provide what others use as much or even more.

The poor think they shouldn’t have to pay for airports and high speed rails since they can’t afford to use them. The rich think they shouldn’t have to pay for assorted social services since they don’t use them.

David in a world of unsatisfied people
seeking perfection in vain