I am just mystified by the pervasive anti-tax sentiment in the United States. Compared to individuals in other countries, we are taxed very lightly, and in places with lower marginal rates for businesses in corporations, governments often recoup the revenue through high VATs, which cut into demand anyway. And even with the nominally high marginal rates for businesses and wealthy individuals here, there are so many forms of deduction, loopholes and shelters that most pay nowhere near the nominal rate in the end. Some very, very great fortunes were made by companies in the U.S. during decades with nominal marginal rates considerably higher than they are now. And still, so many talk about taxes in the U.S. as if they were the eleventh plague that lays waste to the whole land or something. And this ridiculous rhetoric of taxes constituting a form of punishment for amassing wealth, good grief. How about we throw in with the rest of your startup costs the price of creating your own infrastructure, plus hiring a private police force and emergency services to provide various forms of protection of your property, plus hiring a permanent force of instructors to educate high-skilled employees you might need, and so on? I can understand complaining about things like government waste, overspending, spending priorities, lack of accountability, debt and so on. But, having lived and spent considerable amounts of time in other parts of the world with high standards of living, where people pay far higher taxes than exist here, it really makes me feel like those who complain bitterly about rates in the U.S. really need to go back to mommy for a diaper change quickly--and that includes people in both the upper and middle-classes, by the way. Taxes here are not too high across the board, they are too low, across the board. "But, no!!--we're fighting a war or two, the country is awash in debt, our infrastructure is collapsing, our education system is in crisis, we're doing nothing to control health care cost inflation--but give me a bigger tax cut, dammit!" Our grandparents and great-grandparents were so much better citizens than we are that even comparing ourselves with them insults their memory. If our generation had to fight WWII, we would have been routed in ten weeks.
