Regarding our crushing tax burden

From our nation's most colorful newspaper:

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year sinceHarry Truman's presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

...

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010. 

"The idea that taxes are high right now is pretty much nuts," says Michael Ettlinger, head of economic policy at the liberalCenter for American Progress. 

I've been saying forevers and evers that it's time to raise taxes. An increase to the average tax rate of the last 50 years (properly progressive, mind) would go a long way towards righting our economic boat, especially as revenues are likely to bloom along with the recovering economy.


That's the main point of this post, but let me also register a personal peeve about these kinds of articles. Consider:

Individual tax rates vary widely based on how much a taxpayer earns, where the person lives and other factors. On average, though, the tax rate paid by all Americans — rich and poor, combined — has fallen 26% since the recession began in 2007. That means a $3,400 annual tax savings for a household paying the average national rate and earning the average national household income of $102,000. [Emphasis added.]

Emphasis added. So, aside from my work friends (who are all captains of industry, etc., etc.) I know very few people who have a household income of over $100K. This is a case where "average" really, really, does not mean "typical."


My friends may all be artists, writers, teachers, and other societal misfits, but in terms of income, they are mostly doing better than the typical American family. The typical American family would be thrilled to have their household income skyrocket to $102,000. 


(Of course, if it did, they would immediately start grumbling about taxes and voting Rebublican.) 

It's time to raise taxes

Yes, raising progressive taxes will mean a little less money sloshing around in the economy to drive consumer spending. But if that money turns around and funds health services, I think it's a wash. Also, health services are provided by U.S. taxpayers. Flat-screen TVs are built in China.

Check out this graph (via EK):

Without two unnecessary wars, military spending is on a decline. But health services is right there to pick up the slack.

We can be a low-tax, low-services nation or we can be a high-tax, high-services nation. We cannot be a low-tax, high-services nation. And let's be clear, Americans expect their services.

Increased (progressive) taxation is the only way to keep our republic (and its citizens) healthy.

Drivers Responsibility Program not run responsibly

car crash by zophonias.

So for several years I was driving a car with expired registration, no inspection, and no insurance. I'm not proud of this, but I thought it was interesting that the fines for these infractions added up to less than I would have paid to be driving legally all those years.

That calculation turns out to be incorrect, however, because of Texas's Driver Responsibility Program. In addition to the several hundred dollars I already paid in fines, the DRP thing means that I also owe 250 dollars a year, for the next three years.

I don't mind paying for my mistakes, but there is one key thing they forget to tell you when you pay your fines down at the municipal court: They forget to tell you anything about the DRP fines.

I had no idea that I was supposed to pay this money, and I received no correspondence about it until this week, when I got a letter from a collection agency. In fact, I suspect that this is the real reason Texas has not been able to collect these fines and has had to resort to the collection agencies. Nobody, including the clerks at the courthouse, actually knows about it!

Is anybody else familiar with these DRPs? Do they work better in other states?

UPDATE: Others share my woe.

In my particular situation, our fines were paid completely for the first year and we received no notification the second year. The deadline to pay had not expired and when I entered my information on the DPS website, it showed that I had paid my fine and owed nothing. However, when my future father in law, a 20year+ HPD sergeant, ran my license it said that it had been suspended for almost a year. Later I found out that DPS changed your identification number each year, so even if they fail to notify you, and as a good citizen you pro-actively go to the allocated website to pay a fine, the information you are given could be incorrect. Thus leaving you susceptible to being arrested and then paying hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to get out of jail for essentially driving; not because you didn’t pay for whatever violation occurred in the city you received, but because of an additional fine that the state has given you for the same exact violation in said city or jurisdiction. A fine that surprisingly, many drivers have no idea they owe. The financial and economic burden this is placing on hardworking citizens is outrageous.

Fact checking

The federal excise tax on gasoline generates annual revenues which equal approximately 2/3 of the amount the federal government spends yearly on highways.

Please note: (1) Federal monies for road building and maintenance are not limited to highways, so the total federal spending on road building and maintenance exceeds excise tax revenues by more than the 50% that these figures taken alone would indicate; and, (2) The federal gasoline excise tax is not used exclusively for highways, so contributions from the general fund amount to more than 1/3 of the federal highway budget.

Sources: 1, 2, 3

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Addendum:

dr: I think public transportation should be free. Actually, no. There's research showing that people undervalue free services, so there should be a nominal charge.

sp: But then how would you pay for public transit? Taxes on people who don't use it? That wouldn't be fair.

dr: But we already pay taxes for lots of services that we don't use. For example, lots of federal dollars go to building and maintaining roads. So we're already subsidizing transit.

sp: All of the money used for roads comes from gasoline taxes.

dr: That's ridiculous. Do you have any idea how much money the federal government spends on roads?

sp: The gas tax is really high. That's why gas is so expensive.

dr: The gas tax isn't high, and it isn't why gas is expensive.

sp: nyah! nyah!