Economics Questions

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

Gerald Spencer — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 21:31:43 GMT

Tax payer supported jobs such as police, teachers, military, finance, social services, social security, welfare, environmental and other bureaucratic jobs generally do not produce any of the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life.

The citizens who work to produce the necessities of life are usually taxed to pay the government employee salaries. Most of these government jobs are needed to support and protect the citizens that do produce the things that we need to survive, but a lot of these government jobs could be eliminated.

The communist form of government where everybody works for the government because the government owns everything does produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain life. Most of the individuals in communist countries want to work at something other than producing the basic food, shelter, clothing and other products required to sustain life.

They usually become a nation of non-producers wanting the disgruntled producers to produce more and more so that privileged individuals of the elite can keep themselves busy as musicians, poets, social workers, philosophers, historians, politicians, bureaucrats, administrators, etc.

The elite will then let, require, and/or force those that the elite have deemed lower class to work hard and produce the food, shelter, and clothing required to sustain the life of the nation including the elite class of the government employees.

Without businesses and corporations providing jobs, all US citizens would have to live off of the land. Most of the jobs in the USA are and were created by corporations and private businesses. You could study hard, work hard, and then start your own corporation (or business) as I did in 1968, or work for someone else who did.

The corporation or business does not owe any employee anything beyond what the employee contracted with that business to do for the US dollars that the employee agreed to receive in return for the employee's work.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

Praetyre — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 02:47:43 GMT

Someone once explained this to me. The reason government workers pay income taxes is because they are paid from a different government agency's budget than the collection agency (who's workers are exempt).

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

DD5 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:17:11 GMT

Spideynw:

DD5:

You were deceived.

You are either a tax beneficiary or a tax payer. You cannot be both.

Yes, he paid taxes. And you can be both a tax beneficiary and tax payer.

Unless he had another source of income on which he paid more in total taxes then his income as a government worker, he was a tax consumer.

At the end of the day, people are either net payers or net consumers.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

Spideynw — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:26:09 GMT

DD5:

You were deceived.

You are either a tax beneficiary or a tax payer. You cannot be both.

Yes, he paid taxes. And you can be both a tax beneficiary and tax payer.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

DD5 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:07:09 GMT

As Calhoun brilliantly pointed out , there are two groups of individuals in society: the taxpayers and the tax consumers—those who are burdened by taxes and those who benefit. (quote from MES)

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

Stranger — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:04:24 GMT

Jackson LaRose:

DD5:
Public workers don't pay taxes.

Oh yes they do. Or I was seriously deceived when I was in the Coast Guard.

The government paid you wages but "withheld" income taxes from those wages, which is just another way of saying that the government doesn't pay taxes.

The money they taxed from you never moved. It's just an accounting fiction.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

DD5 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:02:02 GMT

Jackson LaRose:

DD5:
Public workers don't pay taxes.

Oh yes they do. Or I was seriously deceived when I was in the Coast Guard.

You were deceived.

You are either a tax beneficiary or a tax payer. You cannot be both.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

Jackson LaRose — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 17:29:18 GMT

DD5:
Public workers don't pay taxes.

Oh yes they do. Or I was seriously deceived when I was in the Coast Guard.

Re: Taxation and Government Workers

DD5 — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:52:55 GMT

Jeremiah Dyke:

Do public workers have the moral right (using this term loosely) to cry when the government taxes their income? If all their pay is from theft, then some of their pay is theft, etc.

Public workers don't pay taxes.

Taxation and Government Workers

Jeremiah Dyke — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:41:41 GMT

Do public workers have the moral right (using this term loosely) to cry when the government taxes their income? If all their pay is from theft, then some of their pay is theft, etc.