Truth in Taxes

About a week ago, when the rebels without a clue were having their “tea parties”, I saw a statistic on CNN about comparative tax rates around the world. There were only two countries listed with lower tax rates than the United States -- Ireland and Iceland.

I haven’t been able to find the story on CNN but I did find some similar numbers on MSN.

Under the heading “Married, 2 kids” you have:

Ireland -- 8.1%

Iceland -- 11.0%

United States -- 11.9%

”In 2003, total federal state and local taxes in the United States were 24.2% of our gross domestic product, ranking among the lowest in the world, with only Mexico at 19.5% with a lower tax rate. “

Recent headlines ought to clue you into my thinking on the subject.

How Ireland became an economic basket-case

Iceland's Economic Ruin Provokes Voter Ire at Former Leaders

You get what you pay for. If you want to move to a City, County or State with lower taxes, you have choices . If you wanted to move to a country with lower Federal taxes, you don’t have many. And right now, you don’t have any good choices.

Here’s another thought. For most of the industrial world, their taxes pay for health care and pensions. Yours pay for aircraft carriers. 12 of them. That is more than the rest of the world combined.

Don Brown
April 21, 2009