Toll Booth Taxpayer – Easy money is hard to come by
By Bob Brown / Mar 10 • Categorized as Living Overseas •
Download Print Friendly PDF
How Much?
On a clear day you can’t help but marvel at the majestic snow capped mountains jutting vertically from the verdant valley floor as you travel north on Highway 5 from Vancouver to Kamloops, Canada. Even in winter, the scene is spectacular. My wife and I have made the trek at least 10 times over the past 10 years, as we vacationed at the Sun Peaks Ski Resort. Skiing is therapy for us. The rugged mountains are peppered with waterfalls, frozen in winter, cascading in spring, and as we discover a new one with every turn. Past the small, aptly named town of Hope, through the pass, and just over the mountain’s crest, we begin our descent on our way to Merritt. I pull out $10 CAD from our change wallet and drive on towards the toll booths, and we pull over. For a few moments we stare at each other; confused. For 10 years we’ve driven this road, and there was always someone there to take our money. Not today. The toll booths are gone, literally…..8 lanes of them…..in each direction. It’s as though the toll booths never existed. We keep driving and wonder……What happened? The spine tingling conclusion to that lead in a little bit later….
Escape from America Magazine, and others like it, are a fabulous means to look at the world through the eyes of others, and if you’re serious about making a change in your lifestyle, an essential way to begin the process. Looking through the pages, articles and archives you can narrow your choices, and examine alternatives. Overseas businesses…..jobs….retirement, you have options, and somewhere in the back of your mind you’re thinking the same thing. Perhaps the information you glean from living vicariously through other writers will spur you to make the transition, and because you’re reading this you’re at least considering the possibilities. Although my wife and I have traveled extensively, I won’t try to duplicate what others have written. If you want to know about the mass transit system in Rio, the weather patterns in Belize, or how to purchase real estate in Paris, then by all means read and search the archives; gather all the information you can, from all the sources you can. What I will strive to do is to pull together the myriad reasons as to WHY you should consider making the move, and making it soon. My motivation…is motivating you. Are there positives to living in the US, and California in particular? Sure. Family, friends, climate, shopping, supermarkets; all make the difficulties of life more bearable…. But if you’re feeling a sense of unease, discontent, or fear of the future, you are not alone, and if we continue down the path that this country is on with the huge debt loads, and loss of freedoms, there is considerable trouble on the horizon. A lot of concerned people, read, dream, and do nothing about it. Hopefully, that isn’t you; because only someone living with their head in the clouds isn’t feeling at least a bit of trepidation as they view how the world, and US in particular, is changing.
Let me state for the record: I am an equal opportunity critic. We did NOT get into the mess we’re in from the stupidity of any one political party. Unfortunately, it was a group effort, and it has been happening for years. Democrat….Republican…There is more than enough blame to go around. Our current Democrat president voted for every spending bill signed into law by the former Republican president. Does that even the score? Hopefully, we haven’t reached the tipping point…hopefully, but as I look around…as I read what some very smart people are saying, I can’t help but come to the conclusion that we sliding off the deck. And personally, I am not optimistic about where we are headed as a country.
Currently, I’m on a kick to lose some weight. I keep telling myself that it took a few years to add the pounds, so I can’t expect to lose it all overnight. It takes time to turn things around, but turning it around starts with that first step. Eating right….going to the gym…..The same concept should apply to government, don’t you think? Exercising that veto pen on bloated spending bills, yes….get leaner by cutting back to the necessities, yes, lower taxes so that we, the taxpayers, can plow that money back into our businesses; into our lives. Yes…Yes…Yes…We have lost roughly 8 millions jobs over the past year and a half…. 8 million less taxpayers putting money into the system, and 8 million people now taking money out. We have 25 states where the unemployment funds have evaporated, and 15 more that are almost ready to dry up. Yes, things are getting so much better.
I know…I know…I hear it all the time, give the guy a chance, after all, he has only been in office a little over a year. Bottom line….I don’t want to give the guy a chance. You cannot spend your way out of deficit, and you can’t tax your way to prosperity, which the present administration is hell bent on doing. Although the President loves to demonize the fat cats, if the Feds confiscated all income, every dime, from the top 2% of taxpayers, they would have enough to run the government for about 2 months. There just aren’t that many of them. So where does all the money that we “need” to run our government come from? You and me…the middle class, and I sense a shift in the winds. On the campaign trail, the guy America put in charge, said over and over that if you made less than $250,000 a year your taxes would NOT increase. We all heard it. (He wouldn’t say that just to get elected, now would he?) Last week when he was asked, the President said that he was “agnostic” about increasing taxes on those making less that $250,000. Agnostic? You mean not adverse, don’t you Mr. President? That was the clearest signal he could possible give to Congress. Look at your chest. Do you see the red laser point smack dab in the middle? Boys and girls, you’re in the crosshairs. (I don’t care about parsing words or being politically correct here). Let me state categorically and for emphasis President Obama lied about raising taxes. I knew it then, he knew it then, and everyone should know it by now. How could he not have known? You cannot tax only the rich and expect to pay for all the largesse he promised. The money must come from somewhere. Either we borrow it….we print it….or we tax for it. I dare say that the White House and Congress have decided on a 3 prong approach. Let’s do all of it! Paper and ink are cheap; let’s see how many more fools we can get to buy the stuff. Your taxes are headed for the stratosphere. Local….state….federal….property, can’t you just feel the revenue agents breathing down your neck? Optimism? Not from me, and certainly not now.
Last July, my wife and I took a Baltic cruise. Copenhagen …. Stockholm …. Germany….Russia, My first observation is that this part of the world is NOT going to help pull us out of our economic funk. Not Possible. In Berlin, most of the city is covered with so much graffiti that officials have given up painting over it. Near Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag there is a fountain which the guide was surprised to see filled with water. She remarked that a local business must pay to fill it because the government can’t afford to do so. And Germany is the entity that Europe is looking at to bail out Greece? Little bit of irony there. In Sweden, you cannot get a home loan if you are self employed. In Copenhagen there are so many bikes I felt like I was walking through a line of army ants. Is parking an issue? Probably, but I suspect that it has more to do with the price of gas. Who can afford a car? Secondly, in each of the Scandinavian countries the guides stated, as if on cue, our taxes are really high, but we have good heath care. A businessman in Copenhagen informed me that 50% of his paycheck is taken off the top for taxes, and he still must pay more at the end of the year. How many of us want to give 60-75% of what we earn to the government before we see a dime? Not me. Oh, and by the way, we WILL end up paying more than our European brethren because most countries across the pond have virtually no military. What, maybe 1% of their GDP goes toward the military? Pea shooters and sling shots will be their first line of defense. Epiphany…..I get it….you “progressives” out there think that if we get rid of our military, ala the Scandinavian countries; we can afford to give everyone health care. Good plan, because all we have to do is hug Bin Laden and his buddies and they will love us. It was all just one little misunderstanding, now wasn’t it?
I understand that there are those of you out there who have a huge emotional investment in the President. I get it. He is going to change the country. He will right every wrong, and the rest of the world will love us. God knows that we need changing. If only those darn Republicans would quit getting in his way. He told us that remaking America was the plan, in his book and on the campaign trail. And included in his statements on remaking America, he did say that the legislation and court decisions of the 1960’s regarding civil rights didn’t go far enough, because, drum roll please, they didn’t address “redistribution of income”. What? That’s right. We need to fix that inequity. And he’s the one who’s going to do it. Did you see that big red “S” on his chest?
For you skeptics out there…From October 1929 until the depth of the depression, 4 years later, the Feds told the population, officially, that the worst was behind us at least 8 times. The stock market gyrated up and down like a small boat, buffeted by a hurricane, and with each wave’s crest the man at the helm would holler, “We’re back on top”! What a relief, until you started back down the other direction and into frothing ocean’s swirl. The people in charge have absolutely no idea how to solve the problems of this country. Their only solution is to spend more money, money we don’t have. China has a surplus because they owe no one, and they have money in the bank, though they are taking more out every day because of their growing mistrust of the bank….US. We owe everyone, and have nothing in the bank. Does the phrase the “world’s largest debtor nation” mean anything? In hind sight, the biggest mistake made by Washington in 1930’s was that they raised taxes. Can you see us moving towards the same “solution”? The Bush tax cuts are set to expire next year. Do you see Congress clamoring for their renewal? By all appearances we’re doomed to repeat that error, and if we do, it will cost us big time.
A few facts for the skeptics, not conjecture, but facts…..
-Over 37 Million Americans are on food stamps. We’re adding about 20,000 more a day to that number.
-1.4 million American filed for Bankruptcy in 2009. A 32 percent increase from 2008
-Pension Funds are massively underfunded. As taxpayers, we are responsible for them
-Social Security is massively underfunded. Retirements are running ahead of projections because more eligible Americans can’t find work. 8 million recently unemployed add to the burden because they aren’t paying into the system. As taxpayers, we are responsible.
-Medicare is riddled with fraud, and massively underfunded. As taxpayers, we are responsible.
-Prior to 2008 70% of our economy was driven by consumer spending.
Consumers have now closed their wallets. Government revenue is collapsing.
-Corporate tax receipts to the Feds are down nearly 55 % through 9/30/09
-Personal tax receipts are down 16%
This is just a small snippet of where we stand financially, and when interest rates begin climbing, as they’ll have to, just how much more will that grow our debt? So tell me, dear reader, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being high, just where is your level of optimism? And why?
Oh, and as to what happened with the toll booths….When we reached Kamloops and began provisioning for our stay, we asked the checker at the market what happened to the toll booths. She gave us the whole story. About 25 years ago, the BC provincial government wanted to improve the road from Hope to Merritt. The bureaucrats didn’t want to spend the money, so, imagine this; they asked the taxpayers to foot the bill by building a toll road. After all, the people who use the road should pay for it, right? No problem so far. The people said OK, but how long will you charge us the toll? Ten years the government said, and then we’ll pull it out, because we will have received enough income to recoup our investment. Fine, replied the citizens…Let’s do it. So, the government built the road. Ten years came and went. The province collected the tolls and until now, everyone was happy. Government efficiency (oxymoron here) at its best, except that BC kept on collecting the tolls, and collecting the tolls, and collecting the tolls. The citizens screamed, but nothing happened. It took ten more years for the provincial government to wake from their slumber. Finally, the cumulative noise became so great that the people’s wrath finally wore down the government’s resistance. The BC provincial government gave up and removed the toll booths, 10 years after they promised they would.
The bottom line is this….a government is loathe to relinquish a revenue stream under any circumstance. It doesn’t matter what they say, once they have that recurring income, it is next to impossible to force them to let go. Easy money is hard to come by. (I like that phrase, hopefully I just coined it, but I doubt it) Ladies and Gentlemen, you and I are those toll booths, that revenue stream, the easy money, and they have us. There isn’t much we can do, if we stay here. We can scream about getting back to the constitutional framer’s intent. But as Nancy Pelosi said, “those people are just so much Astroturf,” so apparently they don’t take us little folk too seriously. Do you think we can make enough collective noise to wake the behemoth up? Do you think they’ll listen to the people? They haven’t shown an inclination to do so…..so far. Barack Obama is a believer, a true believer that the government which governs most governs best, and he “knows” what’s best. And even if they do reverse course, I suspect that we’ve sailed past the point of no return. Right now we are bailing out the Titanic with thimbles. If the feds confiscated everything we own, estimated to be 53 trillion dollars, all that cash wouldn’t be enough to pay off our debt and unfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare, etc.), which is estimated to be over 100 trillion dollars. There isn’t enough wealth in the country to pay that bill, and it just keeps getting larger.
The President just signed on for another debt increase, and the Federal deficit is projected to grow from the current 14 trillion to 30 Trillion dollars in 10 years. Our entire GDP (total of all goods and services) is currently in the range of 12-13 trillion dollars. I think the very best we can hope for is a lost decade, ala Japan in the 90’s, where there is no economic growth. Not the American way, but it’s better to tread water than to sink, I suppose. But treading water or not, the bill for our profligate spending will eventually come due. When it arrives on my door step, when I see how much my share, my wife’s share, my kids share, and my grandkids share is, I don’t want to be here, and that is why I have taken the time to look for opportunity elsewhere. We have found a slice of paradise in the South Pacific, and we plan to relocate there this year. I really want to have an overseas income, totally independent of what happens here. That is my goal. It is imperative that you look for opportunity elsewhere as well.
My wife and I are not rich. We’re middle class, living in a modest house, driving modest cars, and are doing our best to pay our bills and set a little aside. As the noose tightens around my neck, as I feel it choke off my airways, I declare that I will not be a slave to Washington or Sacramento any longer. If you’re paying, and you are, 50-60% (add income, social security, state local, sales, property, gas, and the hidden taxes, you easily arrive at this number) of your income in taxes; oh, and those fees that they seem to attach to everything; you ARE a slave to the system. And they love you for it. If you feel the same way we do, but you aren’t in a position to make the trek solo, take some time to find like minded individuals, family members perhaps, that you can pool resources and talents with. Investigate through Escape from America, research where you can move to, what opportunities are out there, to live with the freedom our creator and constitutional framers intended. Study your options, come up with a plan and make it happen. There are no tricks to changing your life, except the will to do so.
Research about this topic in Google:
Related Articles
10 Comments
Trackbacks
- List Exploding Squeeze Page Secrets - WE Marketing Group.net
- Forex Armageddon. | Become an e-Billionaire!
- Make money? « make easy money at home
I and millions of other Americans can sum up a response to this long article full of conservative Republican Tea Bagger sore loserdom with a very simple retort; our President was and is and always will be better than the Republican alternative offered to us in 2008.
A little socialism is exactly what this country needs; unbridled capitaliism has essentially destroyed our and by extension a lot of the world’s economy. The Republican nominee’s running mate understands this implicitly; Alaskan residents get to take money from a few corporations and REDISTRIBUTE it among themselves every year for no other reason than they are Alaskans.
Taxing a few people at the upper limits of the income levels is appropriate as they have helped destroy the country for regular working folks like the author. Sorry, author, you will never be a multi-100 million non-performance bonus paid CEO, so worrying about tax policy for those who you will never be a part of is a waste of your time and energy and shows that you are more concerned about a class of people you will never be a part of than you are your own family.
Finally, conservative Republican author, may I say a few things that those of us who were opposed to the actions of the previous Administration were told by those like you who favored it?
Here’s the first: Not supporting the President during a time of war is treason. Here’s the other: America: love it or leave it. Please leave, so those of us who want the kind of society where regular middle class people are protected and supported instead of the current one created by conservative Republicans where corporations and wealthy CEOs are treated as victims with special rights that the rest of us must support.
This was apparently written by a corporation masquerading as a journalist. I like this website, but if they should join the RNC to write these things.
Just because McCain and Bush are morons does not make Obama brilliant. The Obama led Democrats are bent on destroying anything resembling a free USA.
Congratulations Alan, you’ve got it figured out. Democrats good….Republicans bad. Corporations bad…. Government good. Sorry to say the issues we face are more complex than that. There is much more than political party animosity or hatred for businesses in play here, though you would like to make it that simple. Our founding fathers were scared to death of a Federal government with too much power. They were right to be scared, because that is exactly what we have. We have lost our way because we forgot their sage advice, and crushed the framework that brought this country to the top of the heap. A “little socialism” is what we need? Well, my friend, we’ve had a lot of socialism since the 30’s, and all that has done is to burn money like we had it. And at one time we did. We once loaned to the rest of the world. Now, we borrow. How about an example…..Are you too young to remember LBJ’s “War on poverty”? I’m not. All that did was to create a class of people dependant on government, and literally burn through money; our money. The goal was noble, the outcome was a disaster. Did it eliminate poverty? You can probably answer that question yourself. One of many government programs that accomplished absolutely nothing but bury us further in debt.
My article had nothing to do with the last election; it had to do with the future. Did I vote for OUR current President, you know the one you are so enamored with? No….that’s obvious. I didn’t trust him then, and I don’t trust him now. He never owned a business. He was never responsible for creating a business plan, marketing, or even making a payroll. He didn’t run so much as a donut stand, and “we” put him in charge? Of course, running a real business shouldn’t disqualify him, though I ‘d venture to say that it would enhance his credentials. Did he run a state? No. Was he a mayor? No. How about a City councilman? No. And he was a Senator for exactly 143 voting days before he declared for the most powerful position in the world. Did he do anything to qualify for the job? You bet. He could read the teleprompter, though in my mind that is hardly something to highlight on the resume.
By the way, I think I’ll take your advice, and pull a “Babs and Baldwin”….You know those 2 idiots who threatened to leave if Bush got re-elected. Funny, I never did see their pictures in People magazine, waving to the adoring fans as they boarded the plane to Shangri-La . I don’t want to be here, and I’m one of the 50% who DO pay taxes, because I am unwilling to sign my paycheck over to the bureaucrats. I will not mortgage my children’s future on the decisions of these government morons any longer. You know Alan, the same government morons who have totally abrogated all fiduciary responsibility. If enough of us leave, taking our intellect, entrepreneurship, and dollars with us, you could possibly be the only one left to foot the bills. Ah, then you would have your utopia, wouldn’t you? Good luck with that. It might be a prudent idea to divorce yourself from the love of this one man, or party, and take a step back to view the canvas with a more cirtical eye. You might just see a picture that you had trouble viewing with your nose so close. Good luck, Bob Brown
this person has very little understanding of basic economics.
maybe he should read Hazletts ‘Economics in one lesson”
then see how he feeels about the nanny state he proposes !
Bob, great article. Terrific insight – and a timely reminder that, well, time is of the essence. I’m reminded that sometimes it’s better to be a decade early than a minute late.
Alan, I can’t decide whether to be amused or shocked that someone so obviously in favor our country’s direction is commenting about it on a site called “Escape from America.” Que pasa, amigo?
Bob, I’m sorry but I need to toss your own “it’s more complicated than that” back at you. First, about Europe . . . the bicycles in Copenhagen result from a 40 year effort to redesign the city so that people CAN bike, so that they don’t have to waste non-renewable and increasingly expensive petroleum resources. The redesign means that people also spend more time actually enjoying the city, going to cafes, etc. — and this in a NORTHERN European city. Unfortunately if one comes from the suburbanized US or car-crazy CA, one does not appreciate the great value and the joys to be found in the public spaces of cities. And, yes, Copenhagen IS a model to be emulated.
Oh, yes, those Danish taxes. Did you ask where they go? Your complaining informant probably did not tell you about the higher education he received as a result of those taxes or the guarantee of housing for all people or all the other benefits that accrue. I know that you likely regard that as the nanny society, but it is a form of solidarity that brings people together rather than setting them at odds — the usual grumbling about taxes not withstanding.
Businesses paying for water in fountains in their neighborhood? Well, it’s not a model I see even here in Madrid. However, it is not without precedent in the US, e.g., in NY where businesses have banned together to pay for additional street cleaning. I don’t know what is happening in Colorado Springs (as I recall) these days now that they are cutting services and turning out street lights . . . .
While you were in European cities, did you take time to seek out the “bad neighborhoods?” The most remarkable thing I found in Madrid — a city in one of the less wealthy western Europen countries — is the safety of the streets and the lack of slums that scar all major US cities. The tax burden is not as heavy here as in Denmark and the social network less well supported, but it still generates remarkably better results than the US approach.
Your comments on Europe reflect both a problem with tourism — processing through a narrow lens with too little information — and with ideology. Your views reflect the predominant ideology that starts from the assumption that all government is bad — and places the facts around that premise. It also repeats a tired falsehood about making people dependent on government — which leads to my second point.
The Great Society, for whatever its flaws, did not do that. I was a researcher in the US and know that the percentage of people with long-term dependence on welfare has always been miniscule. The overwhelming majority use it as it was intended — as a short-term aid. The anti-welfare mindset was reinforced by Reagan’s talk of welfare queens — and resulted in cutbacks, the most severe being signed into law by Clinton. Has that improved the situation? I am further from things now, but there has been no improvement that I have heard of. What is documented is the opposite. Income inequality has been growing in the US and class mobility is now virtually unheard of — it is easier to move up in Germany and Sweden — those socialist or semi-socialist states you would so heartily condemn.
The US remains the wealthiest country in the world, still has some of the best educational institutions, and excels in research. However, how can it tolerate the extreme poverty that exists there? How can it spend so much money on healthcare and not have a correspondingly greater life expectancy? The problem is NOT government, as you would suggest, but the dominant ideology and misplaced spending priorities. Medicare works — and with low administrative costs — yet the passage of a half-baked reform that may improve access to care is generating something akin to open rebellion on the Right. One of the objections was cost — when the US squanders billions and billions on the military which is somehow sacred when it comes to cutbacks?
You are right that things are changing for the worse, but I don’t see responses that will cushion the blow. I had to visit earlier this month (March 2010) where I was greated by the NYC notices about being alert and reporting suspicious activity. The world I entered was exactly like the one we were told growing up existed “behind the Iron Curtain.” The combination of fear and ideology is allowing the US citizenry to passively accept reductions in its personal freedoms and in its freedom of expression, paying ridiculous amounts for “security,” yet willingly allowing people to go without healthcare, to go hungry, and to become increasingly economically, socially, educationally and psychologically separated. Yet where does this fear come from? I live in Madrid, site of a terrorist attack in 2004, with less police state presence, without Guantanamos. Here, just a short distance from North Africa, we still have a society governed by laws that recognizes terrorism as a crime and uses the police and courts to deal with it.
So in the end I agree with you, it’s not simple. It’s not simply that government is bad. It is that the priorities and constraints that US ideology places on government — and the freedom it gives government to restrict fundamental personal liberties — distort the reality — and ideology is not fixed easily — or simply.