Paying your taxes is an act of patriotism.

[The Backlash Cometh]

When I was growing up, one of the things that could really destroy your reputation was being a tax cheat. How was it possible for the Republicans to turn that around? How did they manage to change that perception so that today, people don't see that we're making America weaker because it's doesn't have the funds to build infra-structure or do all the other things that we KNOW the States and local governments will not do?

[Drale]

1. You where also looked down upon if

you constantly lied and cheated on your wife, but the repukes have changed that as well.

[Klukie]

2. Biden tried to say this and got blasted for it....I agreed with him and you!

[YellowRubberDuckie]

6. You will never find a man better than Joe.

I have a huge amount of respect for him. He's human and he worked his ass off to get where he is. It was not handed to him. And he cannot be bought. I totally love him.
Duckie

[Brigid]

3. It all started when people started to believe,

as Reagan was so fond of saying, that government was the problem, not the solution. That, and the "starve the beast" mentality that goes right along with it. Too many people do not get the simple truth that essential government services, doing things that people cannot do individually, costs money.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Isn't it a crazy world we live in?

How the repubs think we can continue to be called a super nation, when they're trying to bankrupt the government.

[LibertyFox]

4. Culture war

I don't think you can solely blame it on the Repugs but on the culture war as a whole.

It's not necessarily paying taxes for the good of the nation, but also paying bailouts for corporations and for wars we don't agree are necessary.

For them it's funding planned parenthood and NEA and Dept of ed etc.

We can discuss the validity of funding or not funding those sorts of things but feeling it as "patriotic" smacks of a morality where a person can feel pride in handing over money and not asking questions as to what they're funding.

[Angry Dragon]

15. ...........

:thumbsdown:

[Terra Alta]

5. I don't mind paying taxes.

I wouldn't mind paying more, if it meant my taxes would go towards helping the poor and sick rather than two useless wars and tax cuts for the rich.

Republicans whine about taxes, but how else are our troops going to get paid, and get their equipment? I guess Republicans don't support our troops. How shameful.

[RKP5637]

17. We fund the troops for war, the MIC profits. Also, the MIC sells arms to other

nations, sometimes those hostile to us, eventually. What a deal. Then, they don't pay their fair share of taxes (if any). It's a racket and the American people, the majority, are being had. And most Americans sleep. And some are idiotic enough to fall for the propaganda and support it all. We live in the "Age of Stupidity!"

[white_wolf]

7. Ayn Rand.

I'm being serious, when you worship a woman who preached the quote "The Virtue of Selfishness" being your taxes is seen as a bad thing, because it is giving to the "parasites."

[proud patriot]

10. +1

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. I see there's a post about her this morning.

Def will look at it after this.

[Octafish]

8. The Rich made it un-fashionable.

They paid for it, too.

[Courtesy Flush]

9. Same with conservation

I'm 51 years old. Growing up I was always taught that it was wrong to waste resources. Part of that was the lingering WWII ethic, I suppose, but I think it's always been considered good citizenship to conserve. What ever happened to that? Now, if you talk about conserving, people call you a Marxist.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. It's like we have to relearn all the lessons of the past.

[Curmudgeoness]

13. Call me a patriot.

I paid my taxes. I paid taxes. I didn't cheat. And although I do bitch about my money funding wars, I like to think that "my" tax money is used to pave roads and help the needy and fund schools.

[Amaril]

31. Same here

Paid my taxes -- even paid a penalty (became an independent contractor midway thru the year and *thought* I calculated my quarterly payments for the last two quarters correctly, but turns out I misunderestimated somewhere by $2,000).

I must also be a patriot!

B-)

[warren pease]

14. I think it USED to be an act of patriotism...

Not these days. Not when they're paying for Bush-era priorities. Now it's just another corporate shakedown.

I've been watching since Nixon as elites, corporate welfare queens and their acolytes in the executive and legislatives branches alter the tax code to reward the rich simply for being rich and penalize the rest of us for being poor or middle class.

But never, even during the shameful reign of Raygun, have I witnessed federal taxes being used to commit so many atrocities -- here and abroad -- screw up more peoples' lives so thoroughly, and blatantly stuff the pockets of the rich elites and corporate ruling classes right out in the open, and dare anybody to object.

I'm pissed off at the fact that the lions share of federal taxes today goes directly or indirectly to the pentagon, along with various "supplemental appropriations" congress rewards Obama with from time to time just because he's so downright charming.

Untold billions more disappear each year into the black budgets of 16 -- count 'em: 16 -- separate spook agencies, many of which used to work exclusively outside US borders but, over the past seven years, have seen their missions change and are now spying on you and me -- and using our money to do it.

Almost as bad, 20.5 percent -- that's the percentage applied to pay just the interest on the massive debt load various republican administrations have inflicted on us as a result of their obsession with plundering the country and transferring the loot to the rich.

Or, as the Concord Coalition put it regarding the 2007 budget:

Spending for interest on the debt in fiscal year 2007 ($238 billion) equaled 20.5% of all individual income tax revenue and more than the net outlays for international affairs ($28.5 billion), general science, space and technology ($21.0 billion), agriculture ($19.6 billion), transportation ($73.0 billion), and education, training, employment and social services ($89.7 billion) combined.

Thanks, assholes. A little money for that other stuff would have been nice.

Every single federal program I support has either had its budget slashed to the point where it can barely function, has already been starved out of existence or, like single-payer health care, was never even born in the first place. But the missile defense shield is very much in business -- even though it's an unworkable and incredibly expensive faux defense program that exists exclusively to funnel yours and my tax money into the pockets of the usual swineherds who run or invest in DoD contractors.

Infrastructure, public education, public health, the social safety net -- dead or dying, in large part because the rich have opted out of their responsibilities as taxpaying citizens, stopped any pretense of creating US jobs in favor of stuffing their numbered accounts and buying massive properties all over the world. They took the jobs they used to create and sent them off to low-wage countries with educated populations, never to return.

And nothing useful has replaced any of this. Instead of pointing fingers at the real problem, the elites propose that we all direct our hostility toward and place the blame on some target group for which they happily supply the bulls-eye -- "illegal" immigrants being the whipping boys du jour -- which absolves them of any blame for the situation.

And because most of us these days seem to be quasi-literate, undereducated, infinitely malleable, simplistic idiots who are easily conned into doing the elites' PR work for them, they've been incredibly successful at avoiding the Place Concorde, guillotine, Madame DeFarge and her knitting needles.

So the upward transfer of societal wealth from the pockets of "the people" to the offshore accounts of the ruling class continues apace.

I say they can all take the proverbial flying fuck at the moon. If we can't round them up and ship them all to Gitmo, at least raise the goddamn marginal earned income rates and double the capital gains top rate.

And while we're at it, instant execution for any rich bastard caught whining about "the death tax." The fewer silver-spoon, insulated, filthy rich little preppy brats flush with their own innate wonderfulness and secure in their sense of entitlement running around screwing up the landscape, the better.

I'll feel good about paying federal taxes the very minute they start paying for policies and programs that help the poor, as well as people of average means. It seems that one way to fund that stuff is by removing huge wads of cash from the pockets of the freeloading bastards who've managed to acquire nearly all the country's wealth without doing a damn thing to deserve it. And they still want more because, for the obscenely rich, there's no such thing as enough.

But that's just my opinion.


wp

[G_j]

23. +100

[RKP5637]

16. As America became more and more dumbed down it became more acceptable. Now

the propaganda runs so deep that the ultimate brainwashing is full-bore ahead.

[Historic NY]

18. Lots of unpatriotic Corporations in the US

Sen. Sanders’ 10 worst corporate income tax avoiders.
1.Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings.

2. Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion.

3. Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS.

4. Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009.

5. Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year.

6. Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction.

7. Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department.

8. Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury.

9. ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2007 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction.

10. Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent.


http://obrag.org/?p=35813

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. We need to keep pushing this info.

I had a Repub friend say that he didn't mind if companies like GE were forced to pay taxes. He was shocked they didn't.

[Initech]

19. I've often toyed with getting "TAXPAYR" as a customized license plate.

But then again I'm afraid of getting my windows bashed in considering I do live in a town heavily populated by freepers / teabaggers / Fux News fans.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. You should see their bumper stickers.

There was one that had a date on it and under the date it said, "Obama's last day in office."

[Initech]

34. It's probably a great time to be a Secret Service agent.

[Le Taz Hot]

24. I used to believe that.

Now I just feel like I'm paying them to fuck me over.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. That's the double edge sword.

[Lorien]

26. Here's a short pro-tax film by a well known Republican:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00u6qUelp6c

[The2ndWheel]

27. If it was voluntary, I would agree

But since it's an act that you're required to do under threat of penalty, with very indirect say in how that money is spent, I'm not sure I would call that patriotism.

[WatsonT]

28. Depends on what those taxes are used for

and refusing to pay taxes for wars has been a long standing tradition of peace activists in the US. (probably elsewhere but I'm primarily aware of the ones here).

[jillan]

29. I feel like getting a bumpersticker that says-Quit your whining & pay your taxes or get off the road

[The Backlash Cometh]

30. Here's my bumper sticker idea:

I may not have served in the military, but I pay taxes without complaining to make sure they're supplied well.

Okay, maybe it's a little long.

[Curmudgeoness]

37. I'm with you. I'd get that one too. Simple and precise. nt

[indepat]

32. The government's refusal to require those with the most income/wealth (including large corporations)

to pay their equitable share of taxes to enable the government to fund its operations/meet its obligations, is tantamount, imnsho, to the reverse of patriotism, i.e., fiscal treason of a sort, albeit this thesis has no legal basis, but this issue is a moral issue. :patriot:

[Imajika]

33. Do you really believe most people ever thought of it as patriotic?

I mean, I think we all must pay our fair share (and the wealthy should obviously be paying far more), but I doubt most people ever viewed it as an act of patriotism. An act of necessity? Sure. But an act of patriotism? I doubt it.

I mean when you pay sales tax at the store do you think to yourself "YES, I just contributed to my state to make things better for everyone!"? When you open up your paystub and see all that money deducted in taxes do you say "Excellent, I just helped fund some social programs for people down on their luck!"? When you pay 4 dollars a gallon for gas and know that some of that cost is due to federal and state taxes do you say "Awesome, feels great to contribute to transportation infrastructure!"?

I just don't think paying taxes ever feels like patriotism to most people. Not now, and not in some magical time in the past. It is necessary and important, but I doubt it will be the kind of thing that will ever patriotic like maybe purchasing War Bonds or something along those lines was.

If paying taxes to the Federal government was something people would feel patriotic about, you'd think there would be a history of people intentionally overpaying to help the cause. There should be a record of large amounts of extra money going to the US Treasury Deficit Reduction fund, yet hardly anyone contributes to that - even those who claim their taxes should be higher.

[Annata4Peace]

35. By paying taxes you support....

illegal wars. Executions of citizens who did not gave adequate representation. A war on soft drugs. Criminalization of travelers. Invasion of privacy by federal agencies. Etc.

Now explain to me how supporting those things is patriotic?

I say starve the hawks first. Build the bridges later.

[rasputin1952]

36. It IS Patriotic to pay one's taxes...

Don't get me wrong, no one likes to pay taxes, but it is simply the right thing to do.

It is also Patriotic to tell those who distribute these funds just where you would like them to go as well, and it is Patriotic to oust them from office when they misuse funds for any of various reasons.

We seem to have forgotten the power we have as a society. The Teabaggers and hells-hounds of the GOP have distorted so many things that it takes quite some time to figure it all out.

But here are some basics I try to live by, and tell my Congresscritters every chance I get, (and they hate me for it).


Before you drop another bomb on some city, town or village....let's make sure not one child in this country goes to bed hungry.

Before you build another aircraft carrier, that needs to be fueled, manned, outfitted with planes and various objects...let's fix our roads.

Before you build one more nuclear device that can destroy a large city, let's make sure every child in this nation is inoculated against preventable diseases

Before you build a "bridge to nowhere"...let's make sure we get serious about HIV/IDS prevention and work on cures

Before you decide that "vouchers" are good for medical care, let's make sure every woman has access to mammograms and PAP smears

Before you dump more tax breaks on corp's and the wealthy...let's make sure we remember to feed people at times other than Thanksgiving and Christmas

Before you cut back on heating for the poor...let's make sure every child and elderly individual has a decent coat and a place to stay where drafts are a thing of the past

Before you allow one more "off-shore" corp,...let's get rid of the one's out there now, and crush the people who put them there to save money, (they are not "patriots", they are traitors!)

The next time you come to my town, smiling, I want you to tell you are smiling because you just stocked the Food Bank with your funds. I want you to tell me you went into the diner and paid for everyone's meal...including the one's outside begging for potato salad.

If you want my vote...EARN it.

And the first Teabagger coward that never did a damn thing for this nation other than bitch, had better get the hell out of my way. I wore the uniform of the US Army, I watched my fellow soldiers get maimed and die, I know the price others have paid so that someone can mouth off about being a "patriot"...to me, they are swine at the trough and should be treated as such.

Sorry, didn't mean to rant...but these people really piss me off.

[arbusto_baboso]

38. Absolutely! Even though I totally disagree with how much of my tax monies are spent...

I go through the normal channels (voting, writing my congresscritter, etc.) to try to change that. I DO NOT withhoold my taxes. IMNSHO, taxes are the entry fee to participation in our democratic process.