Taxation without representation...

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

What it means is that if we are to truly uphold the spirit of our Constitution we will hold our actions accountable with regard to interacting with foreign nations. Somewhere we need to find a balance between Isolationism and Imperialism. Right now, with our military might and our track record, we're leaning more towards Imperialism. Isn't that what our American Revolution fought against?

[mawilson 2,133]

There's another solution to the problem of soldiers being on their 2nd or 3rd tour of duty besides adding more soldiers. We could, you know, bring the ones we've got home to their spouses and kids and parents...

Just bring their spouses and kids to Iraq - problem solved.

[ChristinaM 0]

My apologies, I think I put my six eggs-worth in at just the right time to drag this completely away from where it was supposed to be.

Can you actually buy 6 eggs for 2 cents in England?

LMAO

No...

Are you implying that I set too high a value on my opinion??

Either that or we are paying too much for our eggs here.

I'm going to pretend, in my own twisted little mind, that that was a compliment.

[Henia 11]

The above is one of my frequent rants....

Want to do something that will REALLY shock you? Add up all of the taxes you pay for a week (or whatever your pay period is), then figure out just how much you ACTUALLY make at your job.

I make $560/week. Deduct $156.80 immediately for fed income, state income, county income, city income, medicaid, and SS taxes. That leaves $403.20. For one week of driving to work, I need a full tank (350 miles/week), or 16 gallons. That's $6.72 using the listed tax of 42 cents (it's actually more than that.) So, that leaves $396.48, and gives us a total of $163.52 in taxes so far. Property taxes, if you average it out to a weekly basis, costs me $19.23/week. ($1000/year).

So, now we're at $182.75 in taxes and $377.25 remaining.

My current electric bill is $95.31 + 5.72 in taxes. Divide all of that by 4, and we come up with $23.83 for electric/week, and $1.43 in taxes. $184.18 - taxes, $351.99 remaining.

License plates for the truck and car are $4.81/week ($250 total/year), so we're at $188.99 in taxes, and $347.18 remaining.

Water/sewer/trash bill - $29.83/month, 28 cents of which is tax. $7.46/week, and .07/week. $189.06 taxes, and $339.72 remaining.

Say $50.00/week for food. No tax on that, unless you consider candy a food. Tax remains the same, and total remaining is now $289.72.

Home phone is $37.69. Home phone taxes and surcharges: Federal excise tax, State tax (6%), Telecommunications Relay services, Federal Universal Service Fee. That's $2.59 in taxes. I have international calling on my home phone. That's another $0.79 in tax. $3.38 in total for taxes. $0.85/week tax, $9.42/week total.

That brings our totals to $189.91 for taxes/week, and I have $280.30 remaining.

Let's say I go crazy and actually buy something for myself that week. (Most likely home improvement stuff like lumber. lol) I'll spend $50.00. That means a sales tax of $3.00. $192.91/taxes, $230.30 remaining.

Truck payment - $100/week. Don't think there's tax on that, as Indiana charges tax on vehicles via the license plates. So, we're at $130.30 remaining, taxes still at $192.91.

House insurance - $17.15/week. Don't know about tax. I'll say no.

$192.91/tax, $113.15 remaining.

We'll say that I smoke, too. 2 packs/day. Cigs are around $3.30/pack here. 55.5 cents of that is state tax. 39 cents of that is federal tax. That's 94.5 cents per pack in tax. So, 14 packs/week = $13.23 in taxes, and $46.20 total.

Taxes = $206.14, $66.95 remaining.

I'm going to stop there. You'll notice I don't have internet in there, my cellphone, my web hosting...... Of the $560 I made that week, $206.14 went out in taxes. That gives us an effective tax rate of 37%. What does that really mean? It means I worked 14.8 hours (or almost 2 full days) of a 40 hour week to pay for war, welfare, food stamps, urban development, schools, roads, silverware and china for the white house, George's salary, and who knows what else. 3 days for me, 2 days for the government.

156 days/year to support myself and my family, 104 days/year to support things I disagree with, and others.

Ok, I need to go get drunk now. How much tax is there on a bottle of Scotch?

You are so right, haha no wonder I am so broke LOL

one day the press is interviewing an old native american and he points out how the white man screwed everything up. the reporter asked him what he meant. the old indian says "hundreds of years ago there was no taxes, plenty of buffalo, women did all the work, men hunt and fish. white man thought he could improve on that."