Do you mind paying taxes?

[commander bunnypants]

VA is still deadlocked between tax and anti tax. I would gladly pay more taxes to get the roads fixed. The way I see it, save taxes replace struts, shocks, boots and tires. Or pay taxes and have good roads.

AARRGH

DDQM

[ACK]

1. I live in VA

I don't mind paying at all.

Hell, under Warner's plan, I would have paid less taxes.

But at the same time, I don't mind paying more especially if I know the schools are going to get the money they need and the potholes will get fixed.

[SCDem]

2. Yep I feel the same exact way

In fact I used to live near the border of two counties.... one county the one I lived in was very poor high unemployment, the other moderately successfull... if you were blind and a passenger in a car you could tell from the shape of the roads when you passed the county line.... the shape of the roads was so different.

[cleofus1]

3. no problem

Hopefully it would be a reasonable progressive income tax...in which cast I would not be affected too much.

[RoeBear]

10. So, as long as they...

..tax the other guy, it's ok.

[cleofus1]

11. so if you were in charge...

what type of tax would you prefer?

[Deja Q]

4. That or they'll

privatize roads.

That's what they want to do in MN.

And you know what that means; troll booths everywhere. Oops, toll booths but I'll let this slip stand... Less frequently used roads will get closed or left crumbling... It'll only ADD - greatly - to traffic congestion because people will ultimately have fewer routes to go.

Keep it public!

[jobycom]

5. Or they debating an income tax, and do they have one now?

I don't like paying taxes, but I like the benefits I get from a government that builds roads, funds education, provides a stable social net, promotes tourism, etc. You get what you pay for, and it takes money to make money. I grew up in Mississippi, and we always heard that we were one of the least taxed states in the nation. We were also the poorest, and dead last in most quality of life categories. The two are linked. You don't get a good economy without paying for it.

However, if VA is planning to start an income tax, that's a toss up. Raising an existing tax is one thing, but starting a new one also means hiring a ton of people, using a ton of resources,and causing a lot of headaches. It's not as efficient as raising an existing tax.

It does put a lot of people to work, though.

[felonious thunk]

6. The car tax pisses me off

But it's not that it's a tax that's the problem. It's that you move from one county to another, and they both send you bills and hope that you don't call them on it. I don't mind the income taxes, the property taxes, hell, even the sales tax is reasonable. But that goddamn car tax, and those damn stickers. Fairfax county comandeered my tax return last week, because it didn't accept the documentation from Arlington that I paid the tax there.

So really, I don't even care about paying the car tax, it's the horrible incompetence of the county governments that try to administer it. I'll bet a ridiculous percentage of the revenue from the car tax is spent trying to collect it.

[Deja Q]

9. Car tabs go directly to road maintenance...

I wonder, when roads are privatized by corporate-fascists, I wonder if they'll still have car tabs?

[dwckabal]

7. I love this piece from writer Warren Ellis

He is British, by the way.

"A very short, clumsy precis of how things are supposed to work. We pay taxes. The government takes part in market activity. The taxes and emolument are paid into a common treasury, called the Treasury. The Treasury is used to pay for what people need. I imagine most people are still with me, because roads don't just appear in the night and fire departments aren't operated by slot-machine. Most of the people I just lost are the American libertarians who believe taxes are the only thing between them and owning rocketships, the heavy anarchists who presumably think the future is breatharian, and the serious tribalists who intend to trade food for wicker baskets what they made themselves. People who like electricity are, by and large, still on the same page.

Now, I depart from the pack on the other side. I'm an English Socialist. This means I believe in telescreens, thoughtcrime and other things doubleplusgood. Cradle-to-grave healthcare. A mixed economy. And a free high-quality education system. I do not believe that we give education on a transactional basis.

However, our Chancellor, Gordon Brown, played this past weekend right into the old stereotype of a tight-fisted Scotsman with a white-knuckle grip on the purse-strings. He literally said that university education should not be free and that if we are giving our children higher education then they should pay the money back. This is referred to as "top-up fees." Several thousand pounds per student.

Now, since we still pay an income tax rate that makes Americans blanch, I somehow fail to believe the Treasury is a big box full of fresh air.

I'm happy to pay tax. I'd like to pay less, because some months it's hard to find the scratch to pay for new vats of boiling oil to pour on the peasants from my battlements. But I'm happy to pay. Because it means the firemen will come when I call, it means I'll get treated when I'm sick, and because it means that our children will receive the education necessary to, we live in hope, make better choices in their adulthood.

A fee of several thousand notes is the difference between people from poor backgrounds being educated in the massed knowledge of the world, and being taught out to say 'would you like fries with that?'" (emphasis added)

More here

[skippysmom]

8. No one LIKES paying taxes

But I don't much like paying bills, either. Everyone wishes they could keep more money in their pocket.

But in my mind taxes are the dues we pay for living in a civil society. Roads, schools, etc. are something we all benefit from.