Patterico's Pontifications

4/8/2016

2016: Americans To Spend More On Taxes Than Food, Clothing, Shelter

Filed under: General — Dana @ 6:25 am



[guest post by Dana]

As if we didn’t need more confirmation that our bloated government is but an insatiable entity devouring more and more of Americans’ hard-earned money:

This year, Americans will pay nearly $5 trillion in taxes, which includes $3.3 trillion in federal taxes and $1.6 trillion in state and local taxes. This amounts to almost a third of national income.

This year, Americans will work the longest to pay federal, state, and local individual income taxes (46 days),” states the report. “Payroll taxes will take 26 days to pay, followed by sales and excise taxes (15 days), corporate income taxes (nine days), and property taxes (11 days). The remaining seven days are spent paying estate and inheritance taxes, customs duties, and other taxes.”

Tax Freedom Day is one day earlier than last year because projected federal tax collections are lower than they were in 2015. However, if you included federal borrowing, which represents future taxes owed, Tax Freedom Day would fall on May 10.

The report also finds that Americans will spend more on taxes than they will on food, clothing and housing combined.

The Tax Foundation calculates Tax Freedom Day for the nation as well as each of the states. Tax Freedom Day arrives earliest in Mississippi on April 5 followed by Tennessee on April 6 and Louisiana on April 7. Connecticut will be the state with the latest Tax Freedom Day of May 21, followed by New Jersey on May 12 and New York on May 11.

“Tax Freedom Day gives us a vivid representation of how much federal, state, and local tax revenue is collected each year to pay for government goods and services,” said Tax Foundation analyst Scott Greenberg. “Arguments can be made that the tax bill is too high or too low, but in order to have an honest discussion, it’s important for taxpayers to understand the cost of government. Tax Freedom Day helps people relate to that cost.”

–Dana

49 Responses to “2016: Americans To Spend More On Taxes Than Food, Clothing, Shelter”

  1. Happy Friday.

    Dana (0ee61a)

  2. Happy Friday, Dana.

    Those are small pittances to pay for our wonderful government, federal, state and local. Who said government is the things we do together?

    nk (dbc370)

  3. “Who said government is the things we do together?”

    Every commissar in the Soviet Union.

    Rick Ballard (312c7c)

  4. Close but no cigar, to quote Paula Jones. It was some Democrat, in an ad or PSA, and not too long ago.

    nk (dbc370)

  5. Greetings:

    Well that will all be corrected shortly when our rulers figure out how to exploit the so recently identified tax evaders and tax inverters and remove their wealth and earnings from them and put it all to good progressive government uses. Why in no time at all that $18 trillion debt will have evaporated and we will all be getting our unearned annual incomes as the state withers away and humanity reaches it full compassionate potential.

    11B40 (6abb5c)

  6. Barney Frank’s the one who said government is the things we decide to do together.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  7. So is Obamacare included in that total?

    Chief Justice John Roberts ruled it a tax…

    Scott_T (1f854d)

  8. Those Americans who groan about big business (which generally doesn’t force a person to pay for its goods and services) and shrug off the IRS or their state tax franchise board (which does force a person to pay for its “goods and services”), and who are aware of how corrupt the IRS has become yet still act like prim-and-proper dweebs when it comes to the idea of “it’s as wholesome as apple pie to be honest taxpayers!! xoxo” (ie, an old-fashioned bit of integrity in an era when integrity is passe), don’t get much sympathy from me.

    Mark (0f444a)

  9. the FTB here in #Failifornia is currently after me for over $100K in back taxes, penalties & interest…

    why?

    because, a few years back, they got a 1099 in my name for ~$4K.

    i didn’t file, because that was all i made that year, and it’s well below minimum filing amounts for both state & federal taxes.

    however, i neglected to allow for the desperate need to fund free 5hit for illegals and Moonbeam’s toy train.

    they wrote me and said “you have a state registration & the Board says your average salary is $XX K/year, so added up you made this much and have to file/pay on it.

    i hadn’t actually w*rked in that field, so i ignored them, as i do all stupid people. (actually, i called them up and tried to talk to someone, but they were too busy salivating over the money i “owed” to listen, and simply kept repeating my options to pay.)

    months later, i got another letter, which said “Oh, and you also have a City of Lost Angels tax certificate for *this* field, and the average income for that is $XX K/Year so now you owe us taxes on $XXX K/year, plus, of course, penalties and interest.

    they’re still going on this trail of imaginary income, now looking for three yeas of money i never got, which, had i actually made it, would have allowed me to emigrate to Texas, or some other free country.

    and they haven’t even gotten to 2014 yet…

    redc1c4 (ae46bf)

  10. The way to make people understand how much it costs to run the government is to make them actually pay for the government. Reducing taxes without reducing spending doesn’t do anything, because debt is too abstract and disconnected from most taxpayers. Those who want to reduce the size of government should insist on taxes to pay for what we get, so that we can have a real discussion about whether we think those things are “worth it.”

    Jonny Scrum-half (33c7a4)

  11. I hope Barney Frank understands there are just some things that we’re never going to do together.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  12. And according to the dumbocrats, this is a feature, not a bug. After all, they need that tax money to buy food, clothing, and shelter for everyone unwilling to work for it themselves.

    Edoc118 (db0a9d)

  13. According to the typical lefty, complaining about taxes is ‘racist’. Wanting a smaller government, a government which helps negroes overcome ‘white privilege’, is something evil conservatives want.

    So that’s why the leftys want to expand government and taxes; it assuages their ‘white guilt’…..

    dee (be6ed7)

  14. Johnny Half Sack can always be counted on to shill for the bloated big government. Predictable as a hangover after a bottle of shine.

    JD (8c653a)

  15. Bow down to your bettors. They know what best to do with your money. You can’t be trusted to make decisions for the good of the collective.

    JD (8c653a)

  16. Jonny Scrum-half,

    You should familiarize yourself with the Laffer Curve.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  17. Forcing people to work without compensation. Today we call it “Socialism” or “leveling the playing field” or, to quote Obama, “spreading the wealth.” In Lincoln’s day there was another name for it: Slavery.

    America isn’t a free country. Not by a damned sight.

    CrustyB (69f730)

  18. nk, the judges will accept either answer.

    SPQR (e53149)

  19. @Cruz Supporter:You should familiarize yourself with the Laffer Curve.

    It’s not the “Laffer Curve”. It’s the Extreme Value Theorem, from calculus. The distinction is very important. Because the theorem is a general truth about mathematics, it’s not an assertion from a conservative about tax rates and revenue.

    I have shut down very educated people who pooh-poohed it by pointing this out, that they are denying that calculus is true. Invariably they had to concede that Laffer’s application is 100% correct, and that a tax rate exists that maximizes revenue, and above that rate revenue declines.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  20. My wife and I had big sticker shock with our taxes this year. We have resolved that this year one of us will stay home and direct 100% of their labor to our family, rather than the 65% the state/local/federal governments leave us.

    This will work until the government decides to tax imputed income*, which progressives have been indirectly working toward for a long time.

    *If you cut your own grass, the money you would have had to pay someone else to do it is “imputed income”. The tax on imputed income will start with childcare, naturally. Edcuated professionals with dual incomes will say it is not fair that they have to shell out after-tax income on childcare while flyover yahoos with stay-at-home wives don’t pay a dime to the Treasury for theirs. Home-schoolers can be taxed next, because what they save on private school is imputed income, and not fair to the educated professionals with dual incomes paying for private school.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  21. #19 Gabriel Hanna,

    I was actually referring to the Laffer Curve because it will give Jonny Scrum-half a better understanding of the relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of government revenue.
    But thanks for the insight, anyway.

    Cruz Supporter (102c9a)

  22. @Cruz:I was actually referring to the Laffer Curve because it will give Jonny Scrum-half a better understanding of the relationship between rates of taxation and the resulting levels of government revenue.

    Right, but he’ll dismiss it, because who’s Laffer and why should he believe Laffer, hasn’t that been discredited by Krugman or somebody?

    It’s like if I say 2 + 2 = 4 and then you call it the Hanna Equation. People might dismiss the Hanna Equation out of hand if it is telling them what they don’t want to hear, especially if Krugman or somebody says Hanna doesn’t know what he’s talking about with taxes rates. But they can’t argue persuasively against 2 + 2 = 4.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  23. If bernie is elected tax freedom day will occur on Dec 10. You get to keep everything your earn between then and Dec 31. Yahoo!!!

    Jim (a9b7c7)

  24. #s 16, 19, 21 and 22 – I know about the Laffer Curve, and I even agree with the concept. Other than making that reference, however, what makes you think that you know which side of the Laffer Curve we’re on? Just based on the fact that Bush’s tax cuts in 2002-03 caused us to go from a surplus to a deficit, I’d say that we’re probably on the side of the Curve where increased taxes yield increased revenue.

    Either way, you didn’t really respond to my point that people won’t truly reduce the size of government until they are made to pay for what they’re getting. The truth is, I’m generally fine with smaller government, but however we move forward we need to allow people to understand the consequences. If we don’t make them pay for things now, then they’ll never understand what it takes to have those things.

    Jonny Scrum-half (33c7a4)

  25. RE:24 – which budget year was lower than the previous year, since WW2?

    We have a spending problem that creates the deficit, not a revenue problem.

    Steve Malynn (b5f891)

  26. @Johhny Scrum-half:Just based on the fact that Bush’s tax cuts in 2002-03 caused us to go from a surplus to a deficit, I’d say that we’re probably on the side of the Curve where increased taxes yield increased revenue.

    You can’t know that without replaying the same year at a different rate: 2002 and 2000 were very different economies. And there never was any meaningful “surplus”, since it doesn’t count unfunded liabilities (you’d go to jail if you ran business that way). And revenues went up every year from 2003 until 2009.

    Gabriel Hanna (64d4e1)

  27. Half-sack is a committed leftist and it is laughable he would claim to be for limited government. The Bush tax cuts caused deficits canard kind of gives it away.

    JD (8c653a)

  28. I wouldn’t mind paying taxes so much if I felt I was getting some sort of value in return.

    Instead, I get regulation that doubles my healthcare costs (my monthly premium is now more than my mortgage), and reduces the coverage to the point my plan is essentially, “Don’t get sick, and if you do, die quickly.”

    And worse, the costs keep going up, mostly due to government incompetence and malfeasance. In my lab, we get units of red blood cells from the Red Cross at about $220 per, (for “processing fees.” It’s illegal to charge for the blood itself, you know.) Medicare will reimburse us about $180 for that unit when it’s transfused. The majority of transfusions are Medicare patients, so where do you think that $40 per unit shortfall gets made up?

    That’s a hidden tax.

    Plus, here in Ohio, we did what I thought was impossible a few years back: Replaced Taxin’ Bob Taft with someone even stupider, Ted Strickland, who is trying to run for Senate this year, God help us all. Good ol’ Ted decided he could raise money to pay for Medicaid by raising taxes on Medicaid providers. But hey, we get 65% of that back in Medicaid reimbursements.

    The more I watch the dolts that run this country, the more sadly aware I am that the Tree of Liberty is probably going to need watered soon.

    We are not lead by the best and brightest, by any means. It would be an UPGRADE to our current “leaders” were to to elect a Confederacy of Dunces.

    arik (02de93)

  29. “Just based on the fact that Bush’s tax cuts in 2002-03 caused us to go from a surplus to a deficit, I’d say that we’re probably on the side of the Curve where increased taxes yield increased revenue.”

    Falsehood. The FY2001 budget, which begins in October of 2000 and was adopted with George W Bush being in office was a deficit budget before the tax cut legislation was adopted. This isn’t hard to find out either. The FY2000 budget ended up in deficit as well. Further, if you look at the national debt figures year over year, the debt increased every year of Clinton’s two terms – which means there was never a real surplus.

    SPQR (e53149)

  30. Feeding the Insatiable Beast!?!? Who woulda thunk it.

    Colonel Haiku (58355d)

  31. Teh Return of Johnny Scrote!

    Colonel Haiku (58355d)

  32. Hey, go back Johnny
    Gotta go back now, Johnny
    Hey, go back, Johnny
    Johnny be sad
    They’ll feed you, sure
    They made you cry
    Johnny, you’re bad
    Their gonna make you sad
    Johnny went to the porn shop
    Bought something bizarre
    he’s gonna shove it so far
    He’s gotta love ’em and clean ’em
    Sometimes receive ’em
    They make him cry

    Colonel Haiku (58355d)

  33. Off topic, but on the chance that this might interest some commenters here:

    On tonight’s Fox News, A.B. Stoddard professed shock that Obama committed today to stick with his nominee to fill Justice Scalia’s seat, D.C. Circuit Chief Judge Merrick Garland, even if the Democrats retain the White House in November. Stoddard claimed that Obama voluntarily surrendered leverage for no good reason by making this announcement, on the theory that some Senate GOP senators would confirm him during the lame-duck interval between the election and the seating of the next Congress.

    Those making this argument assert, and I don’t dispute, that from a conservative standpoint, Garland is preferable in many ways to other judges whom Obama might have nominated, and to other judges whom Clinton, Sanders, or Biden would nominate in January. I will spare you any analysis of his rulings; for simplicity, my working presumption is worst-case, i.e., that he will be a Justice Ginsburg clone, or to even her left. Democrat nominees don’t drift right, ever, not since Byron White.

    However, the reason why conservatives ought to prefer him over other possible nominees is simply this: Judge Garland turns 64 in November. Every other potential nominee will be at least ten, and more likely twenty, years Garland’s junior, with correspondingly longer impact upon the SCOTUS.

    Steve Hayes responded to Stoddard by saying that Obama could hardly have admitted he was going to drop Garland just because of the election of a Democratic president. Hayes said Obama will have to stand by Garland for political and rhetorical purposes, but that he knows he’s making a losing case, so he really didn’t throw away any leverage.

    Hayes is right, but not for the reason he thinks. They’re all working on the assumption that this was a serious nomination to begin with. It wasn’t, I’m convinced: When Obama gave Garland the news, they doubtless discussed the hopelessness of the nomination, and Obama asked Garland if he’d be willing to “take one for the team” by letting his name be used for a game of political campaign football in the November election. Gardland, a good soldier, agreed. It’s a nice capstone to a distinguished career: he’s already chief judge in the most important court of appeals, and the list of SCOTUS nominees, even including unsuccessful ones, is still pretty rare company.

    If the Dems win in November, Garland knows he’s expected to immediately withdraw his own name — sparing Obama any need to withdraw the nomination, and giving Obama’s successor power to appoint Scalia’s successor.

    Obama threw away nothing. He simply delivered today’s lines in an on-going kabuki theater, and he did it more than well enough to sucker A.B. Stoddard and, probably, the 1% of America that was paying any attention anyway.

    Beldar (fa637a)

  34. redc1c4

    You are being taxed on the amount of productivity you were expected to produce. You need to embrace your role as a revenue producing unit
    Underachieving the goals of the politburo will result in further charges.

    steveg (fed1c9)

  35. Bernie is still crying over the evil treatment Venezuela’s Chavez economic program got from the maketplace

    steveg (fed1c9)

  36. Johnny Time
    (Sung to the tune of In the Summer time by Mungo Jerry)

    Hey, look, Johnny’s back, and he’s full of snot.
    every word you read will foul your eye
    And with every line
    You got Johnny, you got Johnny on your mind
    not a moby, not a troll
    no one like him that you can find.

    he’s no threat, people
    Though he’s dirty, and he’s mean
    vexing everybody, he can do as he please
    and with every line
    he’s just spinnin’, he’s just spinnin’, his poor wheels
    We’re always happy
    Life’s for livin’ yeah, that’s our philosophy

    felipe (56556d)

  37. Suhweet, felipe!

    “…and, probably, the 1% of America that was paying any attention anyway.”

    Not even rounded upwards, Beldar!

    Colonel Haiku (58355d)

  38. Beldar, great minds think alike. 😉

    SPQR (3bd578)

  39. Stoddard, is not even the sharpest spork in the drawer,

    http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2016/04/us-strikes-al-qaedas-khorasan-group-in-syria.php

    narciso (732bc0)

  40. Old Bowie song…

    Well li’l Johnny thinks it’s neat
    To always stop n’ beat his meat
    When the stench is pretty strong
    Bet your life he’ll pull his dong
    Oh lordy
    Oh lordy
    You know he’s well past forty
    Lonely, lonely
    John, you’re only mincing
    She turns you on
    But you’re only mincing
    She turns you on
    Don’t get her wrong
    You’re only mincing
    Clinton’s lies were bold and rash
    Pockets filled with dirty cash
    She’ll have you voting like a fool
    You’re just another faceless tool
    Oh lordy
    Oh lordy
    Go on and pull your shorty
    Mindless, mindless
    John you’re only wanking
    She’s got you fooled
    And you’re only wanking

    Colonel Haiku (58355d)

  41. why would not rely on the judgement of our ‘betters’

    She worked from 1999–2002 as a producer for World News Tonight. She covered the U.S. Senate for ABC News. She won first place in the “Weekly Newspaper – Editorial, Columns, Commentary” category of the Dateline Awards from the Society of Professional Journalists’ Washington, DC, chapter in 2009,[9] where the judges called her winning article “insightful”.[10] She was awarded first place in the “Weekly Newspaper – Editorial” category in 2011,[11] and was a finalist in the 2012 awards in the “Weekly Newspaper – Editorial, Columns, Commentary” category.[12][13]

    narciso (732bc0)

  42. Squish, squish, squish.

    The mindset of so-called centrists or moderates (assuming that’s the way they even label themselves) in 2016 is based on the current middle point of the ideological spectrum being further to the left — much further in many ways — than it was over 20, 40, 60 or more years ago.

    telegraph.co.uk: Laura Bush, the former first lady, has hinted she would rather vote for Hillary Clinton than Donald Trump, saying she wants the next American president to be someone who cares about women in Afghanistan.

    Although much of the three-day summit focused on protecting women’s rights during war or under repressive regimes, the programme was at times overshadowed by the US election campaign and claims that Donald Trump had unleashed an ugly wave of misogyny.

    Mrs Bush, who recently published a book on Afghan women in conjunction with her husband’s George W Bush Institute, was careful not to endorse or condemn any one candidate. But she signalled she was among the growing band of establishment Republicans whose anyone-but-Trump stance extended to voting for Mrs Clinton in the general election.

    ^ If it weren’t mainly muddle-headed left-leaning emotions (compassion for compassion’s sake!) at the core of such people’s perceptions more than their disdain for Donald Trump — which at least is understandable or legitimate — they wouldn’t maneuver over to Hillary in November. No, they’d instead imply they favored another Republican (eg, Ted Cruz, etc) or, better yet, would be so exasperated with the likely names printed on the ballot in 2016, they’d sit out the election.

    Mark (0f444a)

  43. That was fast!
    Colonel, you so good, you bad.

    felipe (56556d)

  44. they have demonstrated a certain snobbishness toward downscale persons like the huntress, back six years ago ‘she should go back to alaska’ words to that effect, the clintons on the other hand, they find quite congenial.

    narciso (732bc0)

  45. What Apple proves is you can be as greedy as you want if your customers are addlepated enough. The power of marketing; sizzle over steak; the kind of s*** for brains that gave us Trump.

    nk (dbc370)

  46. I keep posting on the wrong threads. That f***ing Obama!

    nk (dbc370)

  47. narciso (732bc0) — 4/8/2016 @ 6:47 pm

    South Alaska

    You’ve got to be fraught
    with hate and fear,
    You’ve got to be taut
    From front to rear,
    It’s got to be drummed
    In your dear little ear
    You’ve got to be carefully shod.

    You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
    Of people whose values are truly made,
    And people whose grey is a diff’rent shade,
    They’ve got to be carefully sought.

    They’ve got to be shot before it’s too late,
    Before they are six or seven or eight,
    Because you hate all the people your relatives hate,
    Because you’ve been carefully taught!

    felipe (56556d)


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