Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my child was young she once asked me what the government was for. I answered simply, "To protect us." I don't believe that is the case any longer now that we are in the "Golden Age" of Trump. If the government no longer: ensures our access to clean air and clean water; protects us from infectious diseases; pays for vital research to address major health conditions like cancer; protects from losing our civil rights; ensures the welfare of our veterans; or provides basic customer service for such important government programs as social security, and so on and so forth, then WHY ARE WE PAYING FEDERAL TAXES?

These were not primary reasons to tax incomes.

DYK what is on the IRS building? Have you lived in Sao Paulo, Nairobi, etc? Taxes are what we pay to live in a civilized society. Gutting Meals on Wheels so Bezos and Musk can have even more money is not civilized.

Anonymous wrote:Well since you wrote it all caps we know you are serious. Though, based on the OP, I don’t expect your income tax liability to be very significant anyways.

Did you just imply that PP is a billionaire? How insulting.

Anonymous wrote:With so many people fired at the IRS, odds are, you don’t really have to pay them. Seems like there will be no one to enforce the law. I felt a little bit like a sucker signing my return the other day.

No, they'll still audit the regular people. They are just eliminating audits on wealthy corporations and individuals.

I think people (and of course corporations include people) who disagree with the current administration should set their federal withholdings to zero.

Money is the only language Trump speaks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my child was young she once asked me what the government was for. I answered simply, "To protect us." I don't believe that is the case any longer now that we are in the "Golden Age" of Trump. If the government no longer: ensures our access to clean air and clean water; protects us from infectious diseases; pays for vital research to address major health conditions like cancer; protects from losing our civil rights; ensures the welfare of our veterans; or provides basic customer service for such important government programs as social security, and so on and so forth, then WHY ARE WE PAYING FEDERAL TAXES?

These were not primary reasons to tax incomes.

I mean, yeah they are. Those are all basic governmental functions.

Read what the federal govt funded before the civil war that was intent of the framers. It's gotten out of hand since then

I would be more than happy to let the red welfare states live without blue state money. Can we get to this quickly?

Indeed. Happy to divert my money to my liberal state government. Let the red states burn. They asked for this, they can have it.

Sure. In theory this feels good. In practice this attitude is not a winning message.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The original reason was to fund essential service such as the military and protecting infrastructure, diplomatic relations and DOJ. Taking that definition would mean only DOD, DHS, DOJ, DOS, Intelligence and some NASA and HHS would be left.

So if our model of government is becoming one in which the federal government is only going to provide protection from external enemies, we should expect to pay proportionally less to the federal government for the bare minimum services we are receiving and more to our states.

This. This is the messaging that Dems should’ve running on.

Perhaps if things stay the course what will happen is we will be paying a "tax" for the right to keep what we have. Basically, pay to oligarchs or their henchmen will make life very, very difficult. Fail to pay? You may have a problem with your mortgage. Your credit cards may be rejected at the grocery store. Maybe it'll be hard to get your kids into a good private school and they'll have to go to the underfunded public schools. Keep screwing up, maybe your passport will no longer be recognized at the airport. And you can't leave.

Anonymous wrote:Trump just fired the nuclear regulatory commission....how is everyone feeling?

Is that even legal and why did he fire them? There are 54 Nuclear power plants in the US and I really hope DOGE is not shutting down the NRC as well

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my child was young she once asked me what the government was for. I answered simply, "To protect us."

It’s scary that someone thinks the government exists to protect us.

You need to take basic Econ and learn about market failures. You know, monopolies (which charge you more if allowed to persist) and information shortages such as producers' unwillingness to provide info (without gov regs, how would you know the sugar and calories in your cereal?).

You also need to study public goods. You know, things like roads, the post office, national parks and even defense. None of these would exist if it was a question of us getting together with our neighbors to repave our street or fund a park in Wyoming.

And public bads, like pollution. Who's going to stop a company from dumping chemicals in that river behind your house, if not the government?

And plain old income distribution. Yes, some of us think that the tax system does a valuable job of redistributing income (somewhat). Even if your take is that providing a tiny something to the poors prevents riots in the streets.

All of these cause a less efficient distribution of resources.

The idea is that cutting government spending means we can balance the budget and cut taxes. Not your taxes, though, rich peoples' taxes can be cut.

Also… why are we bothering to pay congress? They are doing nothing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When my child was young she once asked me what the government was for. I answered simply, "To protect us." I don't believe that is the case any longer now that we are in the "Golden Age" of Trump. If the government no longer: ensures our access to clean air and clean water; protects us from infectious diseases; pays for vital research to address major health conditions like cancer; protects from losing our civil rights; ensures the welfare of our veterans; or provides basic customer service for such important government programs as social security, and so on and so forth, then WHY ARE WE PAYING FEDERAL TAXES?

Because we have to fund Musk and Dumps trips to Florida

Plus all of the lawsuits this administration keeps losing. And then giving Federal employees back pay for not working.

So much for eliminating wasteful spending.

Trump just fired the nuclear regulatory commission....how is everyone feeling?

Anonymous wrote:The country wasn't developed much when the US began so obviously we didn't have to worry about clean water then. The Indians had kept it clean. Our government and people have polluted the rivers.

water was generally clean until the industrial revolution and from then until the 1970's, it got really bad, and is so much better today, until now.

The country wasn't developed much when the US began so obviously we didn't have to worry about clean water then. The Indians had kept it clean. Our government and people have polluted the rivers.