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We pay federal, state, and local, income taxes. We pay taxes to fund Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. We are taxed on profits our investments and savings earn. Property taxes are collected on the value of our homes, and we pay sales taxes on every item we purchase. Additional alcohol and tobacco taxes are charged on those products. We pay fees (taxes) for licenses to drive our cars, to hunt, and to fish. We pay federal and state, gas taxes for the gasoline we need to drive our cars. There are toll roads and toll bridges. Taxes are collected on every air passenger’s ticket. We pay taxes to register our pets. If we give too much money to a loved one while we are alive, we pay a gift tax. If we have too many assets when we die, we pay an estate tax. While I have surely missed a few fees/taxes, the above list is absolutely obscene. I was sitting here thinking: Are we Americans getting our money’s worth? The short answer is no. A longer answer is hell no. Neither of those answers would result in an interesting blog. In order to create a blog worth discussing I will expand on these two simple answers. See if you agree with my thoughts.

It seems there is no amount of money the elected thieves in D.C. can’t waste. In all but 4, or 5, of the last 60 years, revenue received by the federal government, our tax dollars, increased over the previous year. Yet in nearly all but a couple of those years, the government spent more than it received. (This reminds me of a hilarious line I heard recently from an old friend. She said; I had an unlimited budget to remodel our condo, and I exceeded it. That line is not funny when it comes from the government, every year). The national debt doubled under George W. Bush, and again under Barack Obama. It would have doubled again under Donald Trump had he been in office for 8 years. Joe Biden viewed these guys as amateurs and seemed to say, hold my beer. His spending spree has been historic. Nobody in D.C. is interested in slowing the pace of wasteful spending. It is a national disgrace. If they had a collective conscience they would be ashamed.

The amount of tax dollars we spend on education should yield world beating results. Nope. We spend more money, per pupil, than any other nation on earth. Still, we are getting lapped by others. I’m sure it is pure coincidence that our kids competitive standing against their global peers has consistently dropped since the Dept. of Education became a free standing government agency. It wastes $70 billion of our tax dollars annually. Yet, fewer of our kids receive a quality education. How is it possible that there are entire school districts in this great nation where ZERO eighth grade children, for instance, are proficient in math? The Three Stooges could achieve better results, and for a hell of a lot less money.

Social Security (SS) would have a surplus of trillions of dollars if congressional thieves had kept their greedy hands away from the funds. Alas, they didn’t. They have “borrowed” trillions to fund pet projects designed to buy votes. That is why SS is constantly threatened with insolvency. We are told we, and our employers, must send ever larger portions of our earnings to D.C., or risk losing our retirement benefits. Americans should be outraged by the pathetic, perhaps criminal, usage of our retirement funds.

More airplanes are experiencing near collisions, increased delays and cancellations, and complete travel shutdowns, than at any time in memory. Our airports and Air Traffic Control systems are outdated even as billions of dollars in taxes are collected annually from passengers for the purpose of keeping them updated. We have had historic disruptions in supply chain deliveries. For months, a line of freighters as far as the eye could see were waiting to be unloaded at ports all over the U.S. The Secretary of Transportation took a 2 month paternity leave right smack in the middle of this crisis. Upon his return he informed us of a list of highways he deemed “racist”. Don’t we have a right to expect more of those public servants responsible for directing the use of our tax dollars? Of course we do.

The #1 responsibility of our government is to keep us safe. Hundreds of billions of dollars a year are spent on the Dept. of Homeland Security and various and sundry law enforcement agencies in the U.S. Yet millions of illegal immigrants, most of whom we know nothing about, come into our country every year. During the COVID lockdowns of 2021, the government closed airports to foreigners. Nurses, police officers, and others, lost their jobs if they refused to get vaccinated. Apparently COVID never got so bad that the government felt it necessary to close the southern border. We do not have sufficient tax dollars to care for homeless veterans, or the mentally ill. But we have no problem finding tax dollars to house illegals in upscale hotels. Illegals are fed, clothed, educated, and provided with health care and cash from a U.S. Treasury that is flat broke. Our government has decided to give illegals priority treatment over U.S. citizens. Those responsible for fiscal issues seem to be saying: We can’t be out of money, we still have checks! We have truly lost our way.

FedEx began its U.S. operations in 1973. UPS became the first package delivery company to serve every address in the U.S. in 1975. Each of these private companies has been wildly successful. Each company’s stock price has increased many fold since being listed on the NYSE. Their employees are well paid with top notch fringe benefits. In contrast, the Second Continental Congress created the United States Postal System in 1775. It had a 200 year head start on UPS and FedEx. In fact, the post office enjoyed a government mandated monopoly. Indeed, had the USPS been effective and cost efficient there would be no UPS or FedEx. Today, largely because of its ineptitude, the USPS (it changed its name in 1971) runs huge deficits annually. Apparently trying to figure out how to price postage stamps is more than our government can handle.

I have often wondered how angry we Americans would be about paying taxes if every Friday we received our wages in cash. And, instead of having taxes deducted automatically, we were required to stop at several government tables. We would physically count out the cash and hand it over our for federal taxes at the first table, our state obligation at the second table, and the city and county taxes owed at table #3. We would do the same at the Social Security table and so forth. You see, as it is now, we are all conditioned to cash our checks and accept the “net” amount after taxes as ours to spend. I think we would pay more attention if we held the gross amount of our wages in our hands, and were then forced to physically forfeit the fruits of our labor to tax collectors.

Nobody likes to pay taxes. But we understand that taxes are the price we pay to live in a caring and civil society. Every tax payer has the right to expect our elected representatives to be judicious with our money. We have the right to expect the services the government provides will be done at the lowest possible cost. That is not being done anywhere in our federal government.

I hope this blog gave you a new, or different, slant on how our government wastes our money. Please forward it to those self righteous people who claim to be proud to pay their taxes. Thank you for reading my blog, Bob