What do your taxes pay for?

[Blue Mountain]

This thread was inspired by the following post in the Detax Canada thread:

It is you who are failing miserably - at your attempts to convince Canadians and Americans that they must be good obedient 'plantation slaves' and give the fruits of their labour up to the slave master - the corporate Crown of the City of London. Many are now awakening to the fact that income tax pays for NOTHING.

The first thing that I thought of when I read that is this great scene from Monty Python's The Life of Brian:

All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

The intent of this thread is to find an overview of things our taxes pay for, either completely or partially. Not everyone will agree that our taxes should be paying for these, but save for the Anarcho-Captialists and extreme libertarians, we agree that taxes of some sort are necessary.

I'd prefer this thread enumerate agencies and programs the posters find useful, rather than getting derailed into arguments over whether the government or private interests should be supplying the services.

With that in mind, I'd like to start the list with:

• Public education, (hopefully) producing literate and contributing members of society
• Inspection agencies, ensuring our food, drugs, roads and bridges, homes, water, appliances, and vehicles are safe to own, operate, and use
• Criminal law and enforcement, including police, courts, and correctional services (jails, half-way houses, probation)

 

[Thunder]

I pay my taxes cause I want police, firemen, and other civil servants to get paid. That EMS ambulance that will come save me or my dad or my mom, is paid for by my taxes.

My tax dollars make inter-state highways safe and clean. My tax dollars pay for our national defense and the Coast Guard.

 

[talkie toaster]

I am grateful for the tax revenue that goes towards Social Services being able to pay for most of the £500 a week that the care home charges for looking after my father who has Alzheimers.

I am not in a position to care for him and without Social Services stumping up most of the fee I have no idea what would happen.

 

[DC]

i would add,

Infrastructure, Streets and railroads, public transportation
Research, Funding research

 

[Dave Rogers]

My taxes pay for healthcare, free at the point of use. Public sanitation, probably the greatest cause of improvement in life expectancy of the modern age, is in there somewhere, I suspect.

Dave

 

[fagin]

But sadly not wine.

 

[Cuddles]

My taxes pay my salary.

 

[Lothian]

Libraries (inc free internet), sports facilities (Council ones are generally subsidised), fair trade regulations, fishery protection, new laws, repeals of old laws, Town festivals, charitable support, Television and radio, unemployment/child/disability benefit, state pensions, free/ subsidised public transportation.

 

[Thunder]

my taxes pay to keep Russian scientists happy, looking over their nuclear weapons. if we did not pay them, they would look to terrorists.

this is a good investment in peace.

 

[richardm]

Libraries (inc free internet), sports facilities (Council ones are generally subsidised), fair trade regulations, fishery protection, new laws, repeals of old laws, Town festivals, charitable support, Television and radio, unemployment/child/disability benefit, state pensions, free/ subsidised public transportation.

Shall we ask again after the October Cuts get announced?

 

[Lothian]

Shall we ask again after the October Cuts get announced?

At a guess

Libraries (inc free internet), sports facilities (Council ones are generally subsidised), fair trade regulations, fishery protection, new laws, repeals of old laws, Town festivals, charitable support, Television and radio, unemployment/child/disability benefit, state pensions, free/ subsidised public transportation.

 

[KDLarsen]

Free healthcare, with the ability to choose which hospital I would like to be treated at.

So far I've had two major surgeries for my impaired hearing, all paid for by the taxes I pay, as well as a grant every 5 years to have a new pair of hearing aids made.

 

[DC]

my taxes pay to keep Russian scientists happy, looking over their nuclear weapons. if we did not pay them, they would look to terrorists.

this is a good investment in peace.

sounds like my money is good invested when i pay the mafia to "protect" my shop.

 

[ZirconBlue]

My taxes pay my salary.

Maybe you should just keep the money and cut out the middle man.

 

[Beerina]

How about if you get money from the government, you don't get to vote since it's, trivially, a massively distorting conflict of interest?

 

[drkitten]

How about if you get money from the government, you don't get to vote since it's, trivially, a massively distorting conflict of interest?

How about if you get services from the government, but don't take orders from the government, you don't get to vote, because that's an even worse conflict of interest?

 

[hgc]

One thing my taxes pay for is taking up the slack for institutions that are exempt from taxes -- specifically religious institutions. A church pays no property taxes, but owns land that, were it owned by a non-exempt person or insitution, would pay property taxes. This is a form of subsidy for all religion by the population in general.

 

[geni]

How about if you get money from the government, you don't get to vote since it's, trivially, a massively distorting conflict of interest?

Removing pensioners from the voting population would have an interesting effect.

Gets really fun when we consider services in kind such as the enforcement of so call property rights. You end up with a situation where the only people who can vote are expats.

 

[Beerina]

There's a big difference between taking cash directly, and suggesting people try to hop over things government "did for them" ala a child trying not to step on a crack in the sidewalk.

One thing my taxes pay for is taking up the slack for institutions that are exempt from taxes -- specifically religious institutions. A church pays no property taxes, but owns land that, were it owned by a non-exempt person or insitution, would pay property taxes. This is a form of subsidy for all religion by the population in general.

Letting people keep their own money is not freakin' subsidizing them. It's just government not actively harming them via taxation. This is the "evil" in the description of taxes as a "necessary evil".

I encourage less, not more, of this "subsidy" of the government not actively harming people.

I can feel the vibrations of peoples' knee jerk reactions starting to uncoil already. "Must...point...out...goodness...of things done...with taxation..."

 

[Cuddles]

How about if you get money from the government, you don't get to vote since it's, trivially, a massively distorting conflict of interest?

Yes, we should ban all doctors, teachers, police officers, scientists, and so on from voting. After all, what could possibly go wrong when you prevent most of the educated population from having any say in running the country?