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A Journal for Western Man |
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Let's do a tax day thought experiment. Let's pretend that
you-- rather than politicians and unelected government
bureaucrats-- controlled how you spend your own money.
If you are in an average American family, the federal government takes around 25 percent of your income for various taxes. Check out your W-2 form. You’ll also see that your state and possibly your city and country take their cut, probably another 10 percent. If you own land, you pay real estate taxes. Every time you go to the store, you pay sales taxes. When you fill up your vehicle, you pay 18 cents per gallon of gasoline in federal taxes and another quarter in state taxes. Add to that the extra costs of tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers that mean you pay more for everything from shirts to shoes to sugar. Once you add it up, we pay perhaps 40 percent or more in taxes, tens of thousands of dollars. Now imagine that governments limited themselves to protecting our lives, liberty, and property, which would mean most of that money would remain in the hands of we the people who earned it. Now imagine that we Americans decided how to spend our money-- using it to purchase a house, send our kinds to college, pay for our own health care, save for our retirement. Imagine us Americans as our own masters. Instead, Americans are dependent on politicians for handouts. These pushers treat us like children; they act as if we can’t tie our shoes or wipe our noses without their help. They're like doctors who break our legs and charge us outrageous prices for aspirin for the pain. We free Americans must recognize the immorality of our tax system that takes so much that it makes it impossible for us to live free, independent lives; that makes many of us into beggars dependent on crumbs thrown to us by politicians; that redistributes money, so that many Americans see their fellow citizens either as thieves bent on picking their pockets or cash cows to be exploited, creating a war of all against all. It is time for Americans to get mad and stay mad. Demand to keep your own money, which is also your own freedom. Dr. Edward Hudgins is the Executive Director of The Objectivist Center (http://www.objectivistcenter.org) and its Atlas Society, which celebrates human achievement.
This TRA feature has been edited in
accordance with TRA’s
Statement of Policy.
Click here to return to TRA's Issue LV Index. Learn about Mr. Stolyarov's novel, Eden against the Colossus, here. Read Mr. Stolyarov's new comprehensive treatise, A Rational Cosmology, explicating such terms as the universe, matter, space, time, sound, light, life, consciousness, and volition, at http://www.geocities.com/rational_argumentator/rc.html.
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