One has to wonder about the sanity of anyone who would, the day after April 15th (tax time in the US) argue that we aren't paying enough taxes.
I invite those who think they're undertaxed to write a big old check to the government so that they can pay their share. Because in my experience, the people who scream the loudest for more taxes aren't paying their share.
The ones yelling that the "rich" should pay more taxes are typically people paying trivial amounts of taxation already. They're either people who pay little because they don't earn very much money, or they're wealthy people (like John Kerry or John Edwards) who know how to play the tax game to avoid paying taxes. Think Bush and Cheney haven't paid enough? Check out John Edwards and Kerry who pay relatively little in taxes due to playing games with personal LLCs and the like.
I pay taxes. I pay a LOT of taxes. I also happen to believe in progressive taxation. I believe that the wealthy in this country should pay more, even as a percent, than others because it was their (our) luck to be born in a country that provides such opportunity.
But at the same time, don't yell that I should pay even more in taxes. For me, as a working person, taxation represents time I am spending working for the government. Let's take a public school teacher, for instance.
I have friends who are teachers. One I know makes $46,500 per year. She works 182 days per year with each day being 6 hours. She sometimes works a few hours on a weekend grading papers and such. So let's give her the benefit of the doubt and say she works 8 hours per day. That's 1,456 hours per year. After deductions, she pays 15% federal taxes. That's 218 hours each year she works for the federal government.
In 2004, based on my schedule, I worked approximately 2,700 hours. After deductions, my rate rate was 33%. That means I worked about 900 hours for the federal government. That's over FOUR times more hours I was indentured to the federal government than my teacher friend.
Forget the money for a second, let's look at it as a purely labor point of view. I was working for the federal government nearly as many hours as my teacher friend worked for herself.
And what do I get in return? Do I get to drive on special roads? Do my kids get to go to special schools? Does the government send me a basket at Christmas? Obviously not. In the private sector, if I was putting 4 times the effort into something I would get extra appreciation. I don't have spend extra on cable because I work more hours and earn more money do I? I don't pay extra for water or electricity.
Most people I know who scream about taxes don't work anywhere near the number of hours I and others like me do. They have no idea that the typical person who makes a lot of money also works a lot more hours.
I look back at the past year and don't look just at how much money I paid in taxes, I look at how many hours I spent working not for my family but for the federal government. And then I see ungrateful people screaming I should have to work even more hours for the government -- often people who barely work full time if at all.
Now, someone might say "Nobody is forcing you to work all those hours". Very true. I could have chosen a different career. But if people like me did that, there'd be a lot fewer jobs. We provide jobs for people who in turn make money to support their families. Our economy is absolutely dependent on people who are willing to work a lot of hours to create new opportunities.
The only question is where the threshold is where it's no longer worth working so many hours. I already work over 900 hours a year just for the federal government (and another 165 for the state government). I'm sure there's a point where I'd say "Screw it. I've got plenty, I'm not going to put in these hours anymore." Is this the result that tax-increase advocates want though?