Half of America on Welfare?
We can most certainly debate and discuss until the cows come home, how the rich are so rich...and how the poor are so poor.
That's neither here nor there. Jesus said we will ALWAYS have the poor amongst us...until He returns and sits on the throne.
What's not debatable is the fact that almost half of all Americans pay nothing into the Federal Tax system....meaning half are getting benefits from a program to which they pay nothing.
Not healthy...not sustainable.
A leading free-market economist says it's not a stable situation for a republican democracy when half of the citizens aren't contributing to the cost of the government they're benefiting from.
The Washington-based Tax Policy Center estimates that about 47 percent of Americans will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009.
"When you're in a situation where half the people are not paying taxes into the government, there's very little check on the size of the government because people are getting it for free. That's not a stable situation," he notes. "The other part of it is we have to explain that what that means is these people are effectively on welfare," he adds. "You're getting services from the government and you're not paying for it."
Foster says the country needs to explore tax reform ideas, but those ideas need to include making sure low- to middle-income Americans pay some nominal amount "just so they know they paid something into running their government."
See it here; http://www.onenewsnow.com/Culture/Default.aspx?id=965988
Did you catch that phrase, "...very little check on the size of government"? What does that mean? It means that 47% of folks who pay nothing can elect politicians who promise them even more government benefits...that they don't have to pay for. Who wouldn't want a deal like that??
If Jesus tarries....this situation will lead into a twice bloated U.S. government taking huge amounts from a very small portion of the "wealthy" folks....and redistributing it to the other 90% who want lots of stuff but don't want to pay for it.
This usually ends with the government turning on the people...because if they are controlling it all....they will then start to dictate to all of it's subjects EXACTLY how they want them to live.
Are we all seeing signs of that already happening? Does the Bible tell us that the world's government will turn on the Tribulation Saints in the last 3 1/2 years leading up to Christ's return?.....yes it does.
posted by dennis at
11:44 AM
2 Comments:
You are right Dennis. I don’t believe it is sustainable the way it sits now. But in our countries history, it used to be that a very small portion of the population actually paid income tax. The difference was what the government had to pay for back then. We didn’t have all of these government programs that everyone relied upon. Another thing was that that 100 years ago, the government didn’t have near the subsidies that it pays out now. A third thing to consider is that, depending on how you look at it, the federal and state governments employ roughly 13% of the population. In the early 1800’s, there was no income tax. During the war of 1812, they imposed a sort of luxury tax on a few items to support the war, and then got rid of it when the war was over. An income tax was introduced during the Civil War but again, it was removed afterward. The government’s main source of income was through tariffs. So, at this point, most of our population didn’t really pay much for taxes and our government survived. Then it gets interesting.
The 16th amendment passed in 1913 and that really started the income tax. I think I remember reading that only the top 7% of income earners paid about 3%. By 1918, we passed the billion dollar mark, and by 1920, we were at 5.5 billion. Withholding was introduced in 1943 and by 1945 we were collecting $45 billion. How quickly times have changed. Once we gave them access to our money, they had to spend it. And once they got that power, it just snowballed. So my point is that it is possible to have a large portion of the population NOT pay taxes – just not in today’s environment when our government employs 13% of the population and consumes something in the area of 29% of our gdp. That is unsustainable
Darwin
Good points Darwin. I agree that the Federal Gov't has gotten into doing programs and care that our forefathers would have never imagined. Fast forward to Hurricane Katrina and we have thousands of people screaming mad at the Federal Gov't because FEMA didn't come fast enough to care for them. Ultimately, if we expect the Gov't to care for us....personal responsibility goes right out the window...and I believe we have arrived at that point.
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