Tax Freedom Day

Hey man, if you hate the "violence" of the country so much, you're free to leave it.

The fact is, the average effective tax rate for Americans is about 10%, which is one of the lowest in the world. And by the way, how many of those states are leeches, getting more federal money than they pay in?

A record? Do I win anything?

If you don't like the "love it or leave it" comment, then what are you doing other than sitting on the internet bitching and moaning? You believe you live in a criminal country. It's just like stealing money from you at gunpoint. It's appropriate to meet violence with violence, so why aren't you a violent rebel, or a terrorist? Let me suggest that it's because you don't really believe your own rhetoric.

(And by the way, I'll bet that you pay less than HALF of 3.5 months of income in taxes.)

If all taxes are theft, how does one fund a government at all?

I agree. Did you read that the net illegal immigration from Mexico now is zero? As the South Park episode teased, Obama wasn't supposed to solve the problem by making it so crappy here that no one wants to come or stay. Canada and Mexico both gladly drill for oil and both have more sound governments for now.

However I'm not just free to leave it. The government has to give me permission and a passport.


It is sort of sillly to discuss averages when dealing with progressive taxation. Everyone isn't treated the same. It is sort of like including men in breast cancer statistics to make it appear less of a problem.

Guess who's begging the question now.

You're backtracking from your own statements just a couple of inches up the screen. You said it's violence and it's theft at gunpoint. Now you're saying it's merely out of control. Seems to me that it's easy to say these things in internet postings, while living with the benefits of the society that you condemn as criminal.

There are plenty of places in the world that don't have a strong government. Yet you stay in this communist/criminal country, even when there are such ideal libertarian utopias like Somalia. We all know why you stay: Because our system actually works. And the more "criminal" they are, by your definition, the better they work, and the more ideal they are, by your definition, the less well they work.

I already filed my taxes a while ago and I already got my refunds back.

I don't owe the govt a dime. I believe that politicians and leaders who owe taxes should be put in jail. There are far too many of them now. How can those criminals even work for the govt?

And there are potential tax consequences here as well.

The "feel free to leave" mantra from the big government leftists has a hollow, ironic and somewhat sadistic ring to it actually.

Did your anti-American postings on the internet land you on a terrorist watch list?


Marginal rates differ, but the overall effective tax rate is a lot more constant up and down the ladder. Wealthy people pay more in income taxes but less (as a percentage) in state, local, and sales taxes. Poor people pay less federal income taxes but get hit harder (again, as a percentage of their income) with those latter taxes. Mitt Romney's effective tax rate, for example, is less than 14%.

Ahhh...the Somalia card. That one didn't take long either.

It must be fun to use a country emerging from war (civil and otherwise), and decades of socialism not to mention being the rope in a tug-of-war between factions (sometimes funded and supported by the US) trying to impose a government on the country as the finest example of so-called "libertarian Utopia."

Do you get away with such simplistic and superficial analysis in your day job or do they fire you when they see it?

Yet, despite all that...Somalia has actually seen progress when left alone. Is it in great shape? No. But it has improved from the terrible place it started from.

On Somalia anarchism: one, two, three.

Here's a similar story.

We don't really know now do we?




So what you're telling us is that Mitt Romney (despite all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth) is paying an effective rate about 40-50% higher than the average American?

You folks can call Somalia a "card" if you want, but it doesn't the fact that it's one of the places in the world that does have a weak central government. There's also Afghanistan. And the Sudan. If you want to provide your own examples, please do.

There are plenty of countries around the world that have strong central governments, and plenty with weak ones. And as it turns out, the stable, wealthy, successful countries have strong central gov'ts, and the ones with weak central gov'ts are failed states.

No one is denying most of this...only the lessons and conclusions you're drawing from all of it.

e.g.,:

1. You and others throw out Somalia as a so-called "libertarian Utopia" with the implication that if the US were to have less government than it currently does it will devolve into what Somalia is now while ignoring the fact that in much of Somalia many things actually improved after their government fell.

2. You and others ignore some of the biggest, strongest and most central governments in history (and their depredations and oppressions) or simply hand wave them away as inapplicable examples.

I don't necessarily have a problem with government so long as it can be kept in check and within the boundaries of its purpose...which should be to protect the rights of life, liberty and property of its citizenry. Where governments become, in effect, criminal gangs, is when they begin to actually infringe on these rights, typically for the benefit of some special interest or sub-group within the nation. They rob from one to give to another. The restrict the freedom of one group at the behest of another. So on.

The primary issue is vastly different philosophies of government. That is fine. The problem is that the one that advocates less freedom and more coercion wants to impose this on everyone. The beauty of how this nation started was that it as was reasonably independent set of states...almost separate countries who could do things differently from one another. If you want to establish a full on socialist state in CA, MI or NY...go for it. If you want more freedom in some other state. Great! The problem has become the desire to implement this full on socialist state on everyone.

More succinctly, you can have an island of socialism (or Marxism or communism) in a "sea of liberty" but you cannot have an island of liberty in a sea of socialism.

There are a couple of vectors of philosophical disagreement that exist here:

voluntary vs. coercive actions
decentralization, diffusion and dispersal of power and control vs. centralization and consolidation of power and control
respect for the individual vs. the preeminence of the collective

U.S.S.R., East Germany, they did very well. Cuba and Venezuela are just having a grand old time as well.

So you argue for literal anarchy? No government whatsoever? Does that mean no laws as well? Only frontier justice?

The East/West Germany an North/South Korea examples are wonderful because they are as close as we can get to any kind of controlled political/cultural/sociological/economic "experiment."

East Germany/North Korea: More government, more control, more socialism/communism

West Germany/South Korea: Less government, less control, less socialism/communism

Were West Germany/is South Korea perfect? No. Are they substantially better than their siblings? Unquestionably.

Has Germany in recent decades, ignoring the lessons of history and economics move further back toward socialism? Yes. And they'll regret it.

P.S. I'm sure we'll soon hear that examples like the USSR, China, East Germany, etc. are not applicable because these are examples of totalitarian socialism/communism/Marxism. But, logic tells us that all socialism, to be fully realized, must become totalitarian. This is almost inevitable.

No. Not necessarily. Law and legislation aren't necessarily the same things. You appear to assume they are. You appear to assume that society and government are the same things. You appear to assume that absent some powerful government, people will simply all just kill one another. How very Hobbesian of you.

But I would submit that you (and Hobbes) are wrong.

I didn't say any of that. How does one have a government without taxes to pay for it? You are the one being cryptic and not fucking being specific about how all this is supposed to work. I'm just trying to find out--only to be trashed for asking the questions.

What you asked was:


I inferred some things from these questions (mostly based on the general pattern of your posts). These questions appear to imply that without government there will be no laws and only "frontier justice" which, I'm sure implies a sort of "wild west" situation).

But maybe I'm wrong to infer all of that.



You are begging the question here. Why must "government" be funded? Could it be funded by voluntary payments?



Again, irony appears.

You make so many logical fallacies here my brain hurts.

Causal flaw & Fallacy of a Single Cause: You assume that less government (rather than different government and a whole host of other circumstances) was what made West Germany/South Korea better.

Can't quite dig up the proper name of this one in my limited time but "some is good, therefore more is better" is indeed a logical fallacy as well. You do the same with "less is good, so even less will be better."

I used to be libertarian. I've done the reading. I grew out of it.

The problem you fail to see (or admit) is that we have seen this pattern over and over and over again, throughout history and within the present period. So there's more than a coincidental relationship between one condition and various effects. We see certain patterns over and over again we start to draw some conclusions. You also fail to realize that there may be, and often is, a singular major root cause for the problems that occur. I believe that is the case in the examples given. In these more/bigger government situations it is typically the knowledge problem.

I used to be more of a statist. I've done the reading. I grew out of it.

Can we move on now?


P.S. Your obvious desire to control others and use coercion to do so is so far afield from that philosophy makes me seriously doubt you were ever anything like a libertarian.

* pours some gasoline on the fire *

Point taken. They probably did better than the opposite extremes of Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan, etc., but clearly communism doesn't work. But we don't even have to go to that extreme. The folks in this thread think that even the current US situation, with probably the lowest tax burden in the developed world, represents violent criminality.

You keep saying that as if it is true.

First, it is not "the lowest in the developed world." There are at least four countries that are much lower: New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, Chile. I'll take those any day. I'd move there right now if I could. More importantly, there are other measures that probably better reflect the tax burden which include per capita tax burden: "The United States is indeed a low-tax country as judged by taxes as a percentage of GDP, but as judged by taxes per person, the United States is in the middle of the pack." This measure actually takes into account this next point because tax revenue only counts taxes paid now, but GDP factors in government spending (including deficits) which must all ultimately be paid by taxes (or printing money).

Second, it isn't just about current (and explicit) tax burden but the accumulating debt that points to future tax burden and the money printing that operates as a stealth tax.

Third, it isn't just about taxes...it's about the overall trend in the US. By one index that attempts to measure economic freedom, the US has been on a clear and steady decline.

Fourth, the US government's attempts at tighter and stricter tax collection have actually turned more explicitly violent in recent years.

Finally, taxation by its essential nature is theft. It is money taken under, ultimately, the threat of violent enforcement. This is a fact. That sometimes the burden is higher or lower or some places take less or more doesn't change this essential fact. That some don't put up a fight not unlike the mugging victim who takes the most practical option offered when the mugger says "your money or your life" also does not change this essential fact.

In the end, there's little to recommend any other diagnosis than that offered by Rothbard when he said "the state was a criminal gang writ large."

I don't recall saying it before, but if I did, it's because it is true. It obviously depends on how you measure it, and it's not always easy to compare directly, but according to the Tax Foundation's own stats, (reprinted here on Wikipedia), the US has the lowest tax burden aside from India, a poor country.

I added more after you posted I guess...but it isn't just India:


Each of those countries is comparable to the US in terms of development and livability. There are probably others that are pretty close though perhaps not officially "developed" countries.

But level of the US's tax burden relative to other countries simply a red herring anyway.