Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
why don't you slackers work a little harder, smoke less blunts, keep study more, make better decisions with your lives and make more money so you can pay more taxes...imagine what the U.S could be if 100% of the population made enough to pay some meaningful taxes, rather than only 50%!!
think about that.
and yes, we want for nothing material in our family. but i would like to retire at a young age and maintain a certain lifestyle, i hope to retire to a "nice" area of the coastal U.S., i like to travel, and i'm probably going to end up putting three kids through college and very likely post-graduate school as well.
by the way, i've already put a cousin through college..paid her tuition.
fyi tuition at Yale is about $40,000/year X4 years = $160,000
lets assume post-graduate (dental, medical, business or law school) $40,000X4 - $160,000
$320,000 per kid X3 kids = potentially $960,000+ for schooling. Now us Conservatives don't get any "loans" or "grants" or "tuition reductions" ..so basically, a million bucks potentially to send my kids through school.
a million here, a million there, pretty soon your talking real money..
that's why i HATE paying so much in taxes. You've got to understand i send 50% of my hard earned cash to uncle sam....that's an very large amount of money.more than most people make.
i have worked extremely hard all my life to earn what i make.
my career as a heartsurgeon has a finite "lifetime"
i spent 4 years college, 4 years medical school, 8 years surgery residency, 3 years cardiac surgery residency - that's 19 years busting my @ss after high school, working 60-100 hours/wk+. getting paid less than minimuim wage on an hourly basis.
Just what do you believe I deserve to be paid?
now i don't expect any sympathy from anyone, but don't start telling me you "deserve" to be helped by the goverment (i.e., my tax dollars) because you had it rough, or "things didn't work out for me" i worked for 19 years at below minimum wage..
go get married, you and the wife both flip burgers for $6.00/hour, 100 hours/week, and you'll make $60,000 year...enough to qualify as "rich" acccording to the Democrats...then pay taxes and see how you feel about it.
For the sake of argument, let's assume you've accurately described your personal situation. (For the sake of civility, let's further assume you haven't littered your post with condescending and ignorant personal attacks suggesting anyone who doesn't whine about taxes must not work hard enough to pay them. For the record, my wife and I are accomplished IT professionals -- me in management for many years -- and though we don't earn as much as two "doctors", we pay more in taxes than the average American earns. We feel privileged to live in a country where we can earn and keep so much. You can put that in your blunt and smoke it. But I digress.)
Anyway, it seems to me that you're trying to mooch off other taxpayers just as much as the Democrats you like to slur. Does Yale take advantage of any public services, e.g., utilities, roads, public transportation and air travel, police and fire, etc.? What about research grants and other government subsidies, federal grants and loans for students (including former students who are now faculty), etc.?
How about the medical facilities where you work? Any of the above public services? How about public emergency resources, e.g., ambulances, E-911? Do your medical facilities pay property taxes (many don't)? Did any staff receive publicly-funded training: EMTs, orderlies, nurses, office staff? Any of your patients use Medicare, Medicaid, or other publicly-subsidized health programs? Any of your patients able to afford your services thanks to their publicly-funded education at government-subsidized learning institutions? Does the medical profession benefit from any publicly-funded research, grants, loans, etc.?
For that matter, did any of your co-workers or patients attend public schools? Do any live in homes accessible via public roads, protected by public safety resources, and serviced by public utilities? Do any of them work in businesses that benefit from these public resources, and that have customers who benefit from these resources, who in turn work at other businesses, etc.?
Everyone and everything around you exists the way it does thanks to taxpayers. Your life of privilege doesn't exist in a vacuum. You didn't create it out of dust. You took advantage of the benefits of living in a tax-paying nation.
Re. some of your other points, I think your expectations are off. First, it's not up to other taxpayers to let you retire early and get a nice coastal retirement villa. You pay your taxes like the rest of us. The tremendous amount you get to keep either supports your desired lifestyle or it doesn't. If it doesn't, you either adjust your expectations or decide to earn more money. Life is all about choices.
You are mistaken when you suggest you must pay the full cost of your children's education. If they are high-achievers, they will qualify for some grants regardless of financial need. If they aren't, yet you choose to send them to an Ivy-league school, well that's just another choice you make.
You will also find that your children will qualify for low-interest loans regardless of means. Most of America use loans to pay for education these days. You have that option as well. Your children can also work while in school, defraying some of the expenses. Since you are so big on people making their own way in the world, I would think you would encourage this.
Certainly, if you choose to send your children to expensive schools, you will shoulder much of the cost. You should feel privileged to have that choice. Many would give their right arm for it.
By the way, $1M over 30 or so years (assuming you start saving at birth, three children with a couple of years between them, several years of college) is "only" $33,000 per year (ignoring interest and investment gains). While that's not chicken feed, it's also not a fortune for someone with a six-figure income. Choices.
Finally, I don't have any problem with what most doctors are paid. In general, I don't have a problem with any wage-earners who are able to demand whatever the market will bear for their labor. I do have a problem with some CEOs who conspire with compliant boards to suck exorbitant salaries out of companies, especially when the company is screwing its employees and/or its shareholders.
Finally, you're right, HS. It's not a fixed pie. The American pie is so large, in part, because generations of taxpayers have built an extraordinary physical, economic, and educational infrastructure that have allowed so many to prosper. That is why so many Americans can take home tens of thousands of dollars per year while most of the world scratches by on a pittance. We all pay so much in taxes so we can have an economy that provides the opportunities to work in jobs where we can pay so much in taxes.
If you take away the taxes, you also take away the opportunities, and the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. Again, think about that. And count your blessings. We do.