Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®
Return on Taxation
SHOW NOTES: Two major sentiments about how the US (and most countries) treat the citizenry and how to finance and provide the funding. Every person deserves a minimum quality of health care, safety in the streets, educational opportunity, and access to employment. The corollary is that we need the opportunity and support to help people to innovate, create, and build organizations that provide that employment, further advancement, and significant taxes. Do we do this through "tax the rich, occupy Wall Street, millionaire taxes"? Or do we do so by reducing excess spending and reallocating resources toward such basic human needs. Rhode Island is 8th highest in expenditure per student, yet our reading proficiency is only 34% in math 30% in English. No high school in the state is in the top 150 nationally, despite that high expenditure. What's the cause? Politicians don't talk about it. The current US debt is $40 trillion. Our gross domestic product in $30 trillion annually. Who pays most of the taxes? The top 1% pay of earners pay 40% of federal taxes, the top 5% pay 60%. About 35% of all adults in the US pay zero taxes. We need to end the entitlements created to gain votes, the costs of which have doubles in the past ten years from $24 trillion to $4.4 trillion. We need to end the boondoggles created to gain votes. California's attempt at a high speed train created a $100 billion funding gap, yet no train exists. Mississippi clean coal gasification cost $75 billion and was abandoned. Fraudulent pandemic claims cost hundreds of billions according to the government, which failed to monitor the disbursements adequately. Bankruptcy: It's not taught in school, where we don't teach civics or personal finances. That's because we've apparently forgotten how.
