Extract from http://www.harrybrowne.org/ (US libertarian presidential
candidate):
"Today (according to the U.S. Census Bureau) federal, state, and local taxes
take 47% of the national income."
i.e. those in the "land of the free" spend close to 50% of their working
lives (minus market value of those public services they actually wanted) as
government owned slaves.
NB I don't think the situation is much better in Britain - I hope the figure
isn't as high as that, but it wouldn't suprise me if it was. (In the most
recent budget here there were a lot of "stealth" tax increases which don't
show up in simple income tax calculations). My point is that both sides of
this mini US v UK tax debate seem to be seriously underestimating the amount
stolen by their respective governments.
And as for Martin Ling's comments:
"It's not stealing if those people have agreed to pay. Which, technically,
they have. By remaining in the country, and by
upholding the government and its taxation policies."
I'm sorry, but this is ludicrous. The fact that I haven't emigrated is in
no way an endorsement of government theft of my money. I didn't vote for
them and the only reason I "agree to pay" (to use your terminology) is
because if I don't, my property itself will be stolen or I'll be imprisoned.
By your logic, there's nothing wrong with protection rackets run by
organised crminals - because after all, their victims have "agreed to pay"
(if only to prevent their property from being torched), and of course, they
could always move to a different part of the country.
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