If you’re like me, seeing the numbers on your 1040 tend to make your blood boil.
My husband and I paid over $35,000 in Federal income taxes for 2007. That’s more than some of my friends make in a year.
We paid $15,000 in Social Security and Medicare taxes through payroll deductions and self employment taxes. A big fat piece of our pie given to someone else, as we’ll never see any of that again. Both programs will be insolvent by the time we retire. Senator Hope and Change would be proud, no?
The state of Arizona took $5,700 in income taxes and the county and other localities hit us up for $3,500 in property taxes. I chose to live in a state with low income and low property taxes. Lucky? No. Good life choices.
Before factoring in sales taxes on the things I buy and gas taxes on every gallon of gas I use…I’ve given government $60,000 this year.
$60,000 and Senator Hope and Change and his lovely bride think I should pay MORE?
How much more?
No, seriously. I’m asking.
How much more of my pie should I give to someone else? I work over 2400 hours a year for my salary (normal full time is 2080 hours a year), plus extra time outside my W-2 job to help out with our side business.
How much more should I be paying? How much harder should I be working to give my pie away?
Terry Says: April 16th, 2008 at 6:20 amSadly, or I should say THANKFULLY, I doubt I’ll get a dime of your money. I am one of those nearing retirement, in anywhere from 4 to 7 years, depending on when I decide to quit working. (About one month short of 62.)
After all the years of “contributing” to social security, I only wish that the program had never existed. While I have been negligent about putting aside for my own retirement in various funds or whatever, I have also been one of those that was never a highly paid employee with the ability to invest. However, now I wish I had those “contributions” back so as to try to do more with it.
I now work for a state agency (Oklahoma), and as such, will receive a pension from the state at retirement. However, that monthly retirement check will probably not be as much as what I get from Social Security.
All that being said, hear these words….”I made my own bed, made my own choices, and because of my upbringing and nature (conservative), there is no way in which I feel I must demand more from someone else.”
Hopefully, my health will remain good so that I don’t have to access Medicaid in the future.
RedneckInNY Says: April 17th, 2008 at 8:41 pmNot to mention that Mr. Hope and Change and Mrs. Duck and Dodge (sniper fire) both signed onto a bill that would give illegal-freakin’-aliens Social Security benefits.