Why do people favor higher taxes, wouldn't you rather spend your money your way?

It boggles my mind that people want to give their money to someone else to spend it for them. What ever happened to making a choice for your self?



I don't need representation when I purchased this computer, to which I purchased an online provider, to which is why I am here as an end result. I choose all these services/products on my own with out a bureaucracy. Did I make a poor choice?Why do people favor higher taxes, wouldn't you rather spend your money your way?
Let's see: vote with your own purchases. A self regulated industry allowed thousands (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of tainted eggs to go to market. When enough lawsuits (or threats thereof) came to surface, the distributor had a market recall. Of course, how many eggs were already eaten or disposed of, and how many were gotten rid of or attempted to be returned that needn't have? Wouldn't it have been better to have had the old-style objective (or at least mostly objective) government inspectors making sure that the tainted eggs never left the distributor, or even better, never left the farm? The same goes for spinach and peanut butter and beef and many other products the few years?



How much do you enjoy paying tolls at roads? Would you prefer to pay your taxes and travel basically any road, or stop and pay tolls at each interchange? Tolls are lots of fun, great for the economy, makes travel great fun. Not.



You want any sort of retirement? Social security won't give you much. But you could invest in your own stocks and...oh, yeah, lose you a$$ in the stock market and have no retirement at all.



You want to spend your own money on your next vacation? Make sure you don't go to any National Park or Wilderness area or campground on BLM or Forest Service lands. Enjoy a nice camping experience at a KOA. What a joyful night under the stars (that you won't be able to see because of all the street lighting) that will be. Enjoy seeing the wildlife at Bass Pro or Cabela's, because you won't find most of that wildlife anywhere but on federal or state lands. Good thing the feds and most states allow you to camp and hunt on their lands, else you'd have to pay to hunt at "wild" animal farms.



You really want to pay fewer taxes so you can spend more of your own money your way? Tell your representatives to stop sending the military out to "secure" other countries (which, in turn, decreases security in our own country, ironically requiring higher expenditures on things such as airport security). Our military is half of our government spending. One day of military spending is often more than entire years of other departments budgets. You want to be represented by your representatives that you know are often overrun by special interest groups? Know how your representatives vote, write to them, follow them on their websites and on Facebook. Read about both sides to issues and let your representatives know how you want them to vote. Corporations and special interest groups can "buy" representation, but they can't (directly) vote candidates in or out of office, only voters (you) can. Be informed, know where your taxes go, and be engaged with your representatives!
Because some projects are so big that we need to pool our money together.

For example, the Interstate Highway System might not even exist if people didn't pay taxes towards a representative government.

Actually, it wouldn't have existed if the states were tasked with spending in the interest of their own state. You would see the biggest cities have massive highway systems, while states like Wyoming or Montana probably wouldn't even have highways.

Education would also be different too, because large expanses of America would probably still have schoolhouses, while big cities would probably have better schools.

Actually, "liberal" cities and states would benefit more from this arrangement, because states like New York and New Jersey get as little as 68 dollars in spending per dollar of federal taxation. This means that states like New York essentially subsidize states like Alabama or Iowa. Since the people who give complain the least about this, people who recieve (most of the small states) should be happy with what they get.Why do people favor higher taxes, wouldn't you rather spend your money your way?
You need to clarify. There are very few who advocate higher taxes on themselves. Most advocates of higher taxes wish to raise the taxes of others.

I favor a flat tax and limited government.



EDIT: If my federal income tax is going to pay for "roads and schools and firemen and police", what the heck are my school taxes being used for? And my local and state income taxes? What about the taxes we all pay on each gallon of gasoline? Aren't the tolls we pay on roads and bridges a tax for the maintenance of those roads and bridges?
You are confusing purchasing private goods with public goods. The private market is good at providing private goods. No one is asking the government to take your money and to produce private goods.



Since most taxes are on profit instead of revenue, being high taxes does not hamper economic freedom as much as you think. President Clinton raised taxes in the 1990s and the economy flourished.



Since you believe in the free markets, how do you handle negative externalities? That is when individual actions in the market place have bad effects on the public at large.Why do people favor higher taxes, wouldn't you rather spend your money your way?
We only have money because some clever capitalist has created a job for us, from Bill Gate to Joe the Plumber. It's really that simple: If you tax capitalists who create jobs for us there will be fewer jobs. If that were not true, socialism, after over 100 years of socialist experiments, would be the engine of the world's economies today and socialist nations would be the success story of mankind's beneficial development. But the opposite is the proven fact: socialism creates only equality of poverty, except for the elitist socialist rulers who always retain their private fortunes, mansions and jet-transportation. One only need look at Obama's lifestyle while he preaches his "equality for all."



The emperor has not clothes, and it's painfully obvious.



Fact: 45% of Americans don't pay a dime in income taxes. Who do you think they will vote for?
In my experience, the only people that favor higher taxes are the misguided, misinformed public - usually liberals. It's almost like they've been brainwashed by the media. In my county, every time a tax is on the ballot, they vote it in. It's ridiculous! Most of the time the promises that come with the tax hike are never brought to fruition. The money ends up being used on something else, so the next time there's an election, they put another tax hike on there to pay for what the last one was supposed to pay for, and the idiots vote for it!!! There's no accountability for our taxes.
Only some people in this country favor higher tax rates for other segments of the population. Those people who are always looking for a handout from the government will always call those who work hard to build a profitable company and employ thousands of people as greedy capitalists that should pay most of their earnings in taxes to pay for social programs.



It is very similar to when certain nations accuse the US of being nothing but greedy capitalists while they increase the price of oil. Where do you think the money came from to build the Palm Islands or the first skiing resort in the middle of a desert. This building was done in order to help provide a new source of income to a nation that knows that at some point the well will go dry.



The EU is a perfect example of how this thinking will lead to failure. Since the worldwide economic crisis began several member countries of the EU have had their credit ratings lowered, instituted austerity cuts, raised the retirement age, and cut back on other social programs that they now realize are unsustainable.
A lot of people would not be willing to spend any of their money on roads, or police, or military or schools or all the other things the gov't does if they had a choice, yet these are things we all benefit from having, as a society.



I don't know anyone who is against economic freedom, or the ability to make a lot of money, our system is seriously broken. The wealthiest americans and big corporations are in control, and they have made the rules to favor themselves. So the rich get richer and the middle class and poor get poorer. It is pretty obscene that the poorest 40% of americans own 0.3% of the wealth.
How would you feel about that private company that sold you a computer, to have installed software used to gather personal information and to sell said information for profit?



Yes, even your purchase of a computer had representation. The fact is, every aspect of your life has representation. It costs money, a lot of money to ensure a society filled with liberties, lest you lose them at the hands of some greedy sociopath.
I am not actually for higher taxes. I do object to borrowing money we don't have just so a few billionaires and millionaires can buy a new yacht. The deficit is bad enough. I also like to think of America as a great ship of state. If the rich want to ride in first class, it costs more than those in steerage.
So, you're building your own roads and bridges these days? Hired your own fire and police departments? Until you do that, you may want to keep paying those oh-so oppressive taxes (which are among the lowest in the world).



@duker918: The original question was about "taxes" not "Federal Income Taxes."
Wondering if you traveled on your own roads to buy the computer. Did you follow your own traffic rules and hoped others on the road had the same rules. Did you barter with the store or used government backed currency. Were you worried at all about bandits robbing you after wards.
I make plenty of decisions for myself. I'd rather not have to figure out which roads are in need of imminent repair, which schools need new books, which people need the most assistance buying medicine, and which fighter jets will be most useful over the next decade. That would take up a lot of my free time which I use to exercise my liberty.
The lure of free stuff at the expense of someone else is very seductive. When people hear Obama tell them that he's going to provide "free" health care and make the top 2% pay for it, it sounds almost too good to be true. And it is. But this is a trap that works all too often.
Republicans just say yes to anything, their Republican leaders tell them to. They don't even know half the things they're saying yes to. That's why they're Republicans. Can't think for themselves and wait for their lead,
People who favor higher taxes favor them for other people -- not them. Watch supporters of Obama's tax plan react with disgust if he increased everyone's taxes.
I never thought I would see the day when people are complaining that taxes are too low.



If you sat you are against higher taxes they attack you saying we need roads %26amp; schools etc, well havent we had those things always in the past with out paying higher taxes?
Liberals think that taxes are paid by other people. They think that 15% ObamaCare payroll will be paid by employers, not deducted from their salaries.
Sure. I buy a $5 hammer and a $15 toilet seat. While the gov't is 20 times that.
government schooling has trained them to think that way.
i will say your avatar photo is a poor choice