I have paid taxes since I was fourteen, that was sixty-eight years ago. Today my effective tax rate is five times higher than half of American taxpayers. My property taxes are over $1,100 per month.
Would I like them all to be lower? Of course, but I’m not buying the lower taxes crusade, including no property taxes, or no taxes for seniors, because I see what I get for my taxes.
I see the still growing federal deficit and I see that there are many people who need some of my tax dollars the live life at a basic level.
I have also read much of the far political right’s Project 2025 blueprint that is now shaping federal policy. If you read it, I doubt you would like to live in such a country and I doubt you would call it great. But you may realize it is naive and devoid of understanding human nature in a society- like it or not.
Would it be nice to be confident every tax dollar is spent efficiently and legally and that everyone pays their fair share?
Sure would, but when you are dealing with 340 million people at all income levels, with bureaucracy at all levels (made up from that very population) who seek to avoid paying taxes, that has never and never will happen. So we do the best we can.
Having said that, I do not feel people on SNAP or CHIP or using other safety net programs are ripping me off or just lazy. For sure, there are some, but I can’t envision any scenario where I would change places with them.
The fact is we are harming ourselves by not raising taxes to lower the deficit, reduce the interest cost on debt and assure that we provide all the services and support necessary to Americans.
If we don’t believe some of those services to be necessary, let’s take a close, comprehensive and rational look and then decide. You don’t make life changing decisions based on a irrational, false Tweet, especially from a bombastic liar.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Today’s poll question on Smerconish was: By 2050, will the United States be best described as a democratic socialist nation?
I posted: No, we will have already run out of other people’s money – per St. Louis Fed: 2025 nominal GDP = ~$30T, projected to 2035 = $45T, projected at same growth rate to 2054 = $81T.
2024 CBO national debt estimates for 2054 = ~160% of GDP or ~= $130.4T!
As I always state, when it comes to Health Care (and a lot of other stuff), Americans want the best care, stuff, education, etc. YOUR money will buy!
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Correct, America and our Federal Government does not have a tax problem. It does have a spend problem.
As mentioned in many prior posts, tax revenues to the federal government were about $2 Trillion while spend was about $1.8 Trillion in FY 2000:
See: https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/106th-congress-1999-2000/reports/10-2000-mbr.pdf
However, spending increased from about $2 Trillion in 2000 to over $5 Trillion in FY 2025, while spending increased from about $1.8 Trillion in 2000 to over $7 Trillion in FY 2025 – a $1.9 Trillion deficit.
See: https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-10/60306-MBR.pdf
Simply, we have created a variety of entitlements for which Americans want someone else to pay (and increasingly, sending that bill to people too young to vote and generations yet unborn) – whether we are talking about SNAP, Savers Match (coming soon), Medicare Part D, Health Reform, Earned Income Tax Credit, etc.
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and don’t each of those benefit some citizens mostly those who who need support one way or another. Making a society of 340 million different people function is not cheap.
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The spending problem results from the federal government overstepping its authority. It isn’t the federal government’s responsibility to “make society … function”
The federal government’s responsibility is specifically identified in the constitution. It was always intended to be a government of limited, enumerated powers, where the remainder was left to the states or to the people.
Most of the deficit spending is R’s and D’s buying votes, and sending the bill to generations too young to vote and generations unborn.
STOP! STOP I SAY!
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AL Lindquist
raising taxes will, like tariffs, will slow down the economy and do little for the deficit.
try controlling out of control spending. If minimum wage in NYC over the next few years goes to $30 per hour i suspect it harms the economy. The socialist/ communist thinks differently.
SNAP benefits used to go to 1 in 50 and, now 1 in 8. We spend way too much money.
taxes are just a cost that many times are not doing what we expect. Just track spending on education and results for the past 20 years
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