[mseebach]

> The "next guy" here implies anyone who needs it more than you.

Yes, but you only need open a single newspaper to learn that inner city children and old men with cancer are NOT the recipients of the money you're being asked to fork over. So framing tax increases in terms of those worthy causes is essentially fraud.

> On a different note, I must say that I blame more the system that made it possible to give people mortgages who can't pay.

Sure. But it's the exact same system that asks for your tax money to clean up its mess.

[kamaal]

I think budgets exist to solve that problem. When money comes from the people, it must go back to the people. But its seldom done that way.

In case of the US it went too over board. With tax payers money being used to supposedly bail out large corporation and banks. Instead that money went into paying Jets, paying bonuses and insane severance packages to executives.

[partoa]

>Sure. But it's the exact same system that asks for your tax money to clean up its mess.

This makes the system even worse! It's like a cancer, and if you look closely, the people who benefited the most are the ones who created the mess. Not, what I'd call, biggest victims who lost their jobs because of the mess and ended up not affording what they could afford before. I'm not sure the mess was cleaned up either, I think it was whitewashed.

On the issue of where taxes go, instead of the rich refusing to be taxed to fund wars and give bailouts, why not insist on policy change and frugality to ensure that taxes are utilized properly and efficiently. Much as it will never be perfect, it can be close to perfect if with the same vigor that people fight taxes, they would fight for better utilization of the taxes.