[alan_cx]

To me it reads like the usual right wing rhetoric, and that any tax collection is some form of evil socialism. Not quite sure how these people expect their flag waving military, for example, to be funded without the big corporation paying their fair share, but there you go.

Never understood why many Americans don't see paying tax as the ultimate act of patriotism, paying for the country they claim to love. They love the country, but resent paying for it. How does that work? Are they the ultimate freetards?

[kelnos]

I love my country in spite of what our government has done to it in recent decades. I do not support the majority of dollars the US government spends, but feel powerless to effect change.

I resent paying for foreign wars I don't agree with, for secretive government agencies that unnecessarily pry into our private lives, and for ridiculous departments like the DHS which are largely ineffective and throw money away.

I would love to pay more for public education and a public healthcare system. I would love to pay more for innovative, effective solutions to poverty and homelessness. I'm happy to pay for the maintenance of our roads and for services like police and fire departments and public libraries.

Unfortunately, there's no good way for me to express this preference. All viable political candidates at the national level want to spend money on too many things I do not want for the voting apparatus to be of any help here.

So I sit back and grudgingly pay my taxes, hoping that people of like mind but with more political acumen and drive than I have will be able to make sense of the mess eventually.

[mercurial]

I could understand not wanting to contribute to NSA funding, but it does sound like a vocal minority (?) does believe that tax collection should be as low as possible. Possibly due to a mistaken belief in trickle-down economics (if something yellow-coloured trickles down from the top, it doesn't mean it's gold...), or maybe caused by a belief that increasing disparities between social classes is a desirable goal.

[mindcrime]

To me it reads like the usual right wing rhetoric, and that any tax collection is some form of evil socialism. Not quite sure how these people expect their flag waving military, for example, to be funded without the big corporation paying their fair share, but there you go.

Bunk. Being anti-tax has nothing to do with being "right wing" at all. In fact, the entire term "right wing" is 100% meaningless in modern terms.

Plenty of us who oppose taxation ALSO oppose our empire building overseas military operations, and aggressive foreign policy, and want the military rolled back to only what is required for defense of the USA. I for one want the US out of the "world police" role.

Just cutting a huge chunk out of the military budget would be a great start on reducing government spending and decreasing the tax burden.

Never understood why many Americans don't see paying tax as the ultimate act of patriotism, paying for the country they claim to love.

Our country and our government are not the same thing. And Americans have a long history of having issues with excessive taxation by the government.

[coolsunglasses]

What sort of value do you think the typical American taxpayer gets out of their taxes as contrasted with somebody in one of the wealthier European countries?

[alexbilbie]

I'm confused by your statement - a right-leaning Government is attempting to collect more taxes from multinationals who have huge sales in a country and pay little tax and yet you're claiming that they also consider tax collection some form of evil socialism?

[anon1385]

The Conservatives are right leaning from a European perspective and compared to most of the UK governments since the war.

From an American perspective they are more akin to the Democrats: they support gay marriage, support legal abortion, don't support reintroducing the death penalty, support public health care (to some extent), generally support public education, do at least claim to accept that environmental issues are a concern (although we do have an environment secretary who denies climate changes science…). They support giving benefits to at least certain groups in society (pensioners, land owners) and accept the need to provide some level of support for the disabled, unemployed, single parents and so on. They made commitments to maintaining the level of foreign aid. For all their talk of pulling out of the European Convention on Human Rights they have not actually done so. So they have a lot of policies that your typical Republican would be fairly disgusted by.

I wouldn't vote for them myself of course…

[timje1]

This is because the US Democratic party could be considered center-right by European standards, with the Republicans heading into extreme-right.

If a party in the UK hinted at dismantling public health care (the NHS) out loud, they'd be lynched (either in the polls or the streets, whichever was more convenient).

[mercurial]

This is clearly an attempt to explain dmk's post, but not the article which was submitted.