Blaming others and institutions seems in vogue these days. It’s “they,” “them,” and government or the system that is the source of our woes, that prevents our own success or makes life more difficult.
The more we accept that, the faster we are headed to mediocrity.
Those feelings show up a bit differently depending on the setting, but the underlying psychology is the same—protect identity, reduce discomfort, and simplify complex situations.
It shows up regularly in meetooism when one person is criticized but defenders point out that another person did the same thing in the past as if that excuses the inappropriate actions of another.
There is no they or them as entities. There is no government as a thing capable of independent action. All of those are us, you, me and everyone else in society. Government doesn’t take from you, doesn’t work scams on you, doesn’t steal your money for a nefarious purpose.
Of course, the obvious is nothing is free.
Government is millions of fellow citizens working to make society function under laws and regulations that make it all work for 340 million people each with their own idea of success, abilities and resources.
No society can exist without a government. No society can exist solely with each individual acting independently, empowered or not and no society ever existed without some form of taxes no matter what you call them.
“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants… Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes…”
We may be the subject of uncontrollable misfortune at times, but far more often our life is the result of our decisions – actions or inactions.
Spending for immediate gratification, failure to consider the longer term, debt and lack of patience all work against us.
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no problem being accountable for my own mistakes. However, too many politicians want to make taxpayers responsible for others mistakes. Caesar doesn’t live today. The idiots who decide taxation are almost as unaccountable to taxpayers – buying votes to the tune of $1 – $2 Trillion a year, promising hundreds of trillions of money while promising to tax someone else.
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Explain to me why cutting taxes isn’t also buying votes.
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Cutting income taxes is vote buying in many ways – not limited to the highest income among us.
When adopted 113+ years ago, the federal income tax applied to everyone – a minimum of 1%, with a top rate of 7% on net income over $500,000. “Net” is the operable term here.
https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-income-tax-rates-brackets/
The intent was to create a “tax on high income households”, so, because it was on the “net”, only 4% of American households were initiall affected.
Over the next 50 or so years, Congress raised marginal tax rates and lowered the threshold such that more American households paid taxes. In 1960, the top marginal income tax rate was 91% on net income in excess of $400,000. However, the lowest marginal rate, 20%, applied to the first dollar of net income – meaning that everyone with income in excess of the combination of standard deduction and personal exemption was paying income taxes.
In 1960, 78.8% of individual income tax returns filed in the United States had a tax liability.
Over the next 65 years, and especially during the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush Administrations, the percentage of American households with income that were paying federal income taxes declined – from 80% in 1980 to only about 40% today.
Those were tax cuts too!
Did you criticize President Reagan for the Tax Reform Act of 1986? How about President George W. Bush for EGTRRA 2001? If you are criticizing the idiot ass Trump, and his 2017 and 2025 tax cuts, I suspect you also criticized Reagan and W – even though all of those changes RAISED revenue, RAISED the amount of federal income taxes collected … shifting more and more and more of the burden to those with the highest incomes.
Did you criticize John F. Kennedy for his reductions in the top marginal rates and in reductions in capital gains tax rates? Why not?
The idiot ass Trump accomplished his tax cuts by raising the standard deduction and capping tax deductions such as SALT – such that today, about 40% of American households with income are not paying any federal income tax … in fact, many are receiving money from the federal government via various tax credits.
However, even after the idiot ass Trump tax cuts, somehow, magically, federal budget revenues continue to increase. When Trump entered, the 2017 federal budget revenue was $3.316 Trillion. Today, the 2026 federal budget revenue is projected to reach $5.6 Trillion. Not much of a tax cut over the past 9 years.
We have seen federal revenue and spending increase from $2 Trillion a year in 2001, where federal revenue is now $5.6 Trillion and federal spending is $7.4 Trillion. We do not have a taxing or revenue problem. We do have a SPENDING problem.
The problem is, of course, that all of this vote buying, those who pay no federal income taxes, those who get money from the federal government, has all come from deficit spending (which sends the bill for this largess to Americans too young to vote and generations unborn).
We have had deficit spending every year over the past 55 years (since 1969) with the exception of the period 1998 – 2001. Today, we are running annual deficits between $1 and $2 Trillion, and will for the forseeable future, for as far in the future as the CBO cares to predict. Our federal debt is projected to increase from $39 Trillion to $155+ Trillion by 2055.
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I’m not concerned with what happened 20-30 years ago. I’m concerned about deficits and debt in 2026 and irresponsibly adding to both while ignoring SS and Medicare. No doubt the OBBB was vote buying and thus making it more difficult for the next administration to do what will be necessary, even if it is inclined to do so which is doubtful.
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I’m sorry, but the spend from 20 to 30 years ago set the spending baseline which the current Congress won’t cut. The spend from 15 – 20 years ago, especially Health Reform, triggered the addition of $29+ Trillion since 3/23/2010.
Compared to Health Reform spending, the Trump tax cuts were peanuts.
You are lying to yourself if you ignore the INCREASE in federal revenue from the various tax cuts. The numbers don’t lie – federal revenues continue to increase.
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And so does spending to offset the revenue. Interesting article in NYTs on what Trumps war will actually cost for years.
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