MorkandMindy

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I recalled something in the Bible about taxes, in Luke 20:22 -

22 Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or no?
23 But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them, Why tempt ye me?
24 Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? They answered and said, Caesar's.
25 And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.
26 And they could not take hold of his words before the people: and they marveled at his answer, and held their peace.
 
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MorkandMindy

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And I thought our present situation has a certain amount of similarity,
that those living in the Roman Empire had in many cases their very lives owed to Pax Romana, that they weren't being besieged or killed or taken into captivity by the more powerful nations adjacent to them.

Good value for their taxes. Most likely but for Pax Romana they would have no money to pay taxes with.
 
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MorkandMindy

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That point I think most people would agree with, that taxes pay for national defense, and the US pays about 5% of GDP on it's military.

The actual total cost I would suggest is a lot less because everything in a mobile phone came from military projects as did a lot of other components and systems in high tech.
 
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Danigt22

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I was asked in a questionnaire:

Do you agree with President Trump that hard-working Americans should be allowed to keep more of the money they earn?
The less taxes, the more money is in the private sector. It all trickles down back to you at some point. Too many taxes in a crisis would make people invest less, making the private sector weaker. You collect less taxes at the long run. This happened in my country.
 
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Yttrium

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I was asked in a questionnaire:

Do you agree with President Trump that hard-working Americans should be allowed to keep more of the money they earn?

No. Raise taxes, slash spending, balance the budget.
 
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MorkandMindy

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I hope I'm being fair here because the OP is a Right Wing perspective and I'm giving initially Right Wing replies.

The military has a number of functions: employing large numbers of people and giving them discipline and training, developing new technologies, and on many occasions protecting this nation.

Politicians abuse it by using it as threat to other nations, fighting 'forever wars', and implementing regime change against the will of foreign nations.
 
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JackRT

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The less taxes, the more money is in the private sector. It all trickles down back to you at some point.

Trickle-down Economics --- the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

Tax cuts given to the rich stay there in offshore accounts, Very little if any actually trickles down. Tax cuts to the poor are a quite different story. That money is spent almost immediately.
 
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Danigt22

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Trickle-down Economics --- the principle that the poor, who must subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by giving the rich bigger meals.

Tax cuts given to the rich stay there in offshore accounts, Very little if any actually trickles down. Tax cuts to the poor are a quite different story. That money is spent almost immediately.

How do taxes work in the USA?, in my country it is directly in the products you buy. Im not very savvy in this topic, since my country is very small and everything is centralized.
 
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MorkandMindy

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The less taxes, the more money is in the private sector. It all trickles down back to you at some point. Too many taxes in a crisis would make people invest less, making the private sector weaker. You collect less taxes at the long run. This happened in my country.

In the US money mostly travels up the economic spectrum and then out of the country.

If I see a doctor I'm charged at 50 times my own pay rate, I'm almost on minimum wage, and the senior doctor who owns the clinic gets most of what I pay and the doctor or physician's assistant gets a lot less, but still about five times what I'm paid.

And that applies pretty much across the board, our local car mechanic charges 400 dollars an hour, he doesn't say so, but he wanted 600 dollars to change a rocker box gasket, it was under the air intake manifold so in total would have taken close to an hour. And a nearby architect charged 100,000 dollars to design something not all that complicated and so on.

And dentists and vets and opticians all charge a small fortune and the money goes from the poorly paid up to the top of the Middle Class.

And the rich buy yachts and cars made in Europe
 
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Pommer

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I was asked in a questionnaire:

Do you agree with President Trump that hard-working Americans should be allowed to keep more of the money they earn?
This is about the “payroll tax” that funds Social Security.

A naked ploy to get rid of the Program altogether.
 
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MorkandMindy

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Like in Germany were they have universal healthcare?

The US healthcare system is the most complex single entity in the Milky Way galaxy. It cost 17.7 percent of GDP in 2017, a lot more than the military which it is fashionable to bash as expensive and inefficient.

It should cost about 10 percent of GDP, largely due to the amazing mass of contradictions it contains and the fractal nature of the way it is administrated.

Elizabeth Warren blew her chances of becoming President when she stated the way to fix it was to give it a lot more money.

The US healthcare system is overall a government run monopoly, obedient to the huge healthcare lobby.
 
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MorkandMindy

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That is perfectly fine, thank you for asking basic questions so we can all argue through those, and as my OP illustrated, there are a ton of people here who don't understand what our tax system is all about, or indeed any tax system is about.

I'm middle of the road and think taxes should pay for things that can not efficiently be done on a piece-work basis, the military, roads, and most likely, basic healthcare. And control of food quality and a bunch of things where a patchwork system would not work.
 
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Danigt22

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The US healthcare system is the most complex single entity in the Milky Way galaxy. It cost 17.7 percent of GDP in 2017, a lot more than the military which it is fashionable to bash as expensive and inefficient.

It should cost about 10 percent of GDP, largely due to the amazing mass of contradictions it contains and the fractal nature of the way it is administrated.

Elizabeth Warren blew her chances of becoming President when she stated the way to fix it was to give it a lot more money.

The US healthcare system is overall a government run monopoly, obedient to the huge healthcare lobby.

10% sounds too low. Germany pays 15% and in Costa Rica we pay 20%. Take in also in mind, many people who couldnt afford it, now are in line for a chemo.
 
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