Taxpayers and Freeloaders

Nearly half of US households pay no federal income tax:

Quoting Yahoo Finance:

Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it’s simply somebody else’s problem. [...]

In recent years, credits for low- and middle-income families have grown so much that a family of four making as much as $50,000 will owe no federal income tax for 2009 [...]

The result is a tax system that exempts almost half the country from paying for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education.

Of all the ways in which this country is screwed up, this is one of the worst.  Representation without taxation is no better than the reverse.  If you don’t pay taxes, you shouldn’t be able to vote; and why don’t you go find some other country to be a parasite in?

Glenn Reynolds has it right:

Everyone should pay at least some income tax.  And everyone’s tax bill should go up or down whenever federal spending does.  Alternatively, we should abolish the income tax and replace it with a sales tax that varies in the same fashion.

Related: How to Cut Government Pay:

Government employees on average have higher pay and bigger benefits than the private-sector employees who support them with taxes.  This has become a well known fact.

When private firms run extended losses -- spending more money than they take in -- their employees must share in the necessary adjustments.  But how about when governments spend much more than they take in, running huge and extended deficits?  What should happen then?  This is something Americans who work in private companies might consider while they file their tax returns over the next week.

It’s outrageous that half the country pays no federal income tax, and equally outrageous that the government continually spends money it doesn’t have.  I was going to say it’s outrageous that more people aren’t more outraged over these two issues, but it’s actually not: half the country believes this is unfair, and they’re the Tea Partiers; the other half is the half who are freeloading, so of course they don’t mind.