The six-figure club.

Minnesota, California, Illinois and New York are some of the highest-taxed states.

Explain to me how they're at all civilized? I'll wait.

For a very long time.

 

Compare actual tax rates - including sales tax - and "highest taxed states" rankings change. By pure effective tax rate Texas and Florida pay more overall in taxes than Illinois does per capita.

Then remove farm subsidies. Then adjust for federal dollars paid in versus federal dollars paid out.

But wait a second Roger, what about WELFARE?!?!?!? Okay, let's add that into the mix too - which states have the highest welfare per capita? Not any of the four you mentioned.

But ignore all that.

Taxes fund our military expenditures. How many of the "you pay too much in taxes" crowd are willing to cut military funding?

I live in Wisconsin. I pay more in Federal Tax dollars than my state receives in return. In exchange roads get built in New Mexico, which allows commerce to pass through that barren waste land, which benefits me in Wisconsin.

Break These United States into individual countries - which states would prosper and which would become failed states? Since 2010, Wisconsin has cut taxes while Minnesota has slightly raised taxes (when considered overall - income, property, sales, excise, etc). Which state has shown higher GDP growth? Which state cut it's road budget and which state increased spending?

What factors allowed the United States to provided 75% (roughly) of the war material for the Allied Forces in WWII? It was things like the TVA. What factors put Americans on the moon first (and to this point only)? The Land Grant college system - paid for by taxes. General Motors, Ford, DeSoto, LaSalle, and Cadillac would not have survived without tax dollars. Ignoring the massive amounts of money the US Army was given to buy vehicles in the 1920s, it was tax dollars that built the roads and service stations that made automobiles practical. Tax dollars are the only thing keeping Smithfield and Conagra from selling you "meat flavored sawdust tubes". We complain about the low quality of high school graduates - but compare spending per student adjusted for inflation from 1970 to today.

If you wanted to do away with it all - it wouldn't last. Individual property owners would band together to protect their own property - giving up a portion of their earnings to fund the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity. If that sounds familiar, it should. It's a rough paraphrasing of the preamble to the US Constitution.

 

Just don't forget that nearly half of those punished don't vote those policies. That's one of the biggest problems with the electoral college. It allows uninterested/vindictive candidates/Presidents to ignore/punish people in states that aren't their "color."

 

Yeah, and that is what angers me. I am one of those that wants to work and be left alone. I also want to keep more of what I make. Case in point; we figured out that anything after 60 hours of working is a waste since our OT pay is basically going straight into taxes. So working 65+ hours a week is about the same paycheck as working 55.

I find it compelling that we supposedly are so freaking important, yet we take the brunt of it when it comes to keeping what we work so hard for.

It pisses me off to no end that people where sitting at home for $900 a week pursuing their hobbies or being with their family members while the rest of us are on the roads keeping warehouses and store shelves full. Yet we are the ones that never got a break at any point for working when others simply chose not to.

Yeah, maybe I am just salty and crying over sour grapes. But on one side you got people that get something for doing nothing, while on the other side you got us getting taxed out of our arse... And if you work harder and longer, you just get to pay more taxes.

Its absolutely an inverted way on how society should work in my opinion.

 

Amen.

 

Could you please walk me thru your math?

 

When we start making time and a half, it seems that a disproportionatel percentage is going towards taxes than what we were making prior to what we were making at the 54-60 hour window.

 

I think that's more impression than reality.

Yes the percentage of your take home pay goes down as your earnings go up, but you're looking at a percentage point drop at most - for the numbers I ran you'relooking at .5% drop. Overall take home and earnings per hour still go up. Once you account for the increase in social security pay out, it's really a wash.

 

And in reality, the false impression we get is all there's really to it. We just have a collective complaint when we are working 10 additional hours at the OT rate of $36 an hour and expect a $300+ frosting on our paycheck and it feels like a kick in the balls when it's only $200 and some change.

We feel like we are getting robbed. We don't pay taxes, they take them before we can see our check. That's not a payment, that's theft.

 

state taxes is really a small price compared to housing cost. The $500000 house in Exeter NH proberty taxes were over 11000. The house in Marinette WI at $250000 but only $3000 in proberty taxes. How long to make up the difference?