Why Americans Hate Paying Taxes – Salon

Americans, especially exurban and rural Americans, distrust the federal government to spend tax revenues wisely.

The great divide in the United States is Urban-vs-Rural — and much of that reflects experienced relationships to government. 

If you live in a city, you experience numerous city and county services constantly. Not merely the roads and a sheriff’s deputy or two, but lots of services.

When my wife and I were young, we both lived in the country. Our water came from wells. My wife’s family had a septic system. So, even the water was not a government service. Volunteer fire departments serve many rural areas, along with “reserve officers” for law enforcement. Local boards meet monthly, or even quarterly, and then for routine budgets.

Life in a city means police and fire service, visible (and audible) night and day. Traffic lights and street lights. The roads and bridges are constantly under maintenance. Infrastructure, too, requires constant repairs and upgrades. In a city, you see government close up and your neighbors might work for the various levels of government.

Other than a few teachers, I cannot recall any city or county workers living nearby when I was young. When you don’t know anyone working for government, it is a distant concept.

Elected city officials have salaries and staffs. There are city managers, strong mayors, and lots of people in busy offices.

In the country? If you see someone from the government of California or a department of the United States, they are likely there to check a farm for compliance. There are thousands of regulations imposed on small farms, as the New York Times has documented. The government is a burden more often than not.

Yes, there are federal farm support programs, but they curiously serve the Midwest early-primary states. It could also be argued that farms would need less aid with less complicated regulations and trade policies.

The middle class sees corporate welfare and aid for the truly needy. They don’t understand how many benefits the middle class receives in the tax code (a great many tax breaks). The middle class believes, and that’s what matters, that they pay a lot for very little direct benefit.

As David Masciotra wrote for Salon:

Why Americans hate paying taxes
If Americans had larger political imagination and ambition, they would insist on getting more for their money

DAVID MASCIOTRA • 12.30.2017 • 10:00 AM

In contemporary political discourse, any celebratory, or even nuanced, analysis of taxation would suffer a heretical inquisition. Even most liberals celebrate the nobility of “easing the tax burden” for working families, while leftists advocate escalating taxes on the rich, but refuse to acknowledge that, if America were to truly transform into a European-style social welfare state, middle-class income earners would also pay more in taxes, and rightly so.

If we wanted European Social Democracy, it would cost a lot. Everyone would have to pay something. But, since many in the middle don’t believe tax many is well spent now, they resist new expanded programs and higher taxes. Worse, many on the left promise the impossible future of “the rich” paying for everything. They also promise such taxation would reduce inequality. What happens when there are fewer super wealthy? Then everyone has to pay!

Taxpayers in that large middle swath? They don’t realize the federal government spends far more than it receives, and much of those federal dollars benefit the middle class. Often, the middle class in states like California don’t feel connected to state spending. The taxpayers do see local taxes at work, and resent those a bit less. (Only a bit. Just ask homeowners in states with high property taxes if those funds are spent wisely.)

When most people consider their financial status, they do not pause to reflect on the local efficacy of a highway expansion project or even the crucial existence of a fully functional educational program for children with developmental disabilities. They think in terms of losses and gains for themselves and their own family.

The citizens of other nations seem to have a better grasp of how government spending benefits them. I do not want an extravagant state or federal government, but many people do — as long as someone else is paying. In other nations, people feel more connected to government, and government is half or more of the economic activity.

The Norwegian, even the Canadian, can justify relatively high tax rates with the knowledge of access to excellent health care, opportunities at tuition-free public universities, and readily available and affordable childcare. She can consider her routine use of safe, efficient and comfortable public transportation, and she can recall the joy of a culture with a vibrant public arts program. She can feel grateful for civilization.

We don’t pay European tax rates, and still feel that we pay too much. And for what? Americans feel they pay a lot and have little to show for these taxes. Again, perception matters and this will be the perception Progressive Democrats and others on the left will be challenging. (Young people like the promise of “free” things until they are middle-class taxpayers. The Boomers fighting taxes today include many former radicals.) We look at our “take home pay” and resent the taxes because bridges are collapsing, dams breaking, and schools failing. We don’t trust government with more money.

The American watches a percentage of his income vanish on every pay stub, but still has a high health insurance premium and an even higher deductible, makes a student loan payment every month and takes into account large fees for the private daycare center at the opposite end of town.

Americans have a unique, ambivalent relationship with their state and federal governments. We love to hate them.

It will be interesting to watch what happens as more Americans move into cities and the rural voting base shrinks. Will more people view government favorably and support higher taxes on themselves? Or will American voters continue to support higher taxes only on “the rich” and imagine that will be enough to solve our problems?