- Medieval serfs paid fewer taxes than “free” Americans…
- Debt kills…
- Tax day is finally here! If you HAVEN’T filed yet, you need to learn about this loophole that can LEGALLY save you thousands in taxes. But you need to learn about it before midnight tonight
Dear Reader,
Today is April 15 — Tax Day — the evil day.
It is the date by which Americans must appear before the goons of the Internal Revenue Service… and empty their pockets upon the counting table.
Salaried income, bonus payments, investment hauls, poker winnings, bingo jackpots, lemonade stand killings, cash gratuities and more — all must come pouring out for inspection.
If the tax man suspects you are attempting to withhold one lone dollar from him?
He will seize you by the ankles… rotate you upside down… and give you a mighty shake.
If the merest penny rolls out, you are likely in for a good, hard roughhousing.
He will likely impose extravagant penalties upon you. He may threaten to jug you.
He may actually jug you.
The Price of Civilization
Yet taxes are the price to pay for civilization, argued Justice O. W. Holmes in 1904.
We must therefore conclude that United States civilization overtops all civilization, shames all civilization.
The United States government hauls aboard some $3.5 trillion in tax revenue each year.
The United States tax code bulges to over 7 million words — several times the immense bulk of King James’ Bible.
Civilization thus shines in glory!
Now mix in state and local levies.
We discover the average American sweats, huffs and puffs over five months of the 12 to work off all federal, state and local taxes.
This year’s “Tax Freedom Day” projects to arrive June 12th — the latest this century to date.
Medieval Serfs Paid Lower Taxes than “Free” Americans
Consider your medieval serf.
“One day’s labor in 10” was the prevailing principle that governed him.
That is, a medieval serf labored merely one day in 10 to meet his taxes.
Yet today’s American must slave over five days in 10 to meet his taxes.
Yet he declares himself the freest bird in world history.
Let us compare present tax rates with the American Colonies under tax tyrant King George III…
Between 1764 and 1775, American Colonial taxation ran to some 1% of total income — 1%.
Thus I raise a question:
Might you renounce United States citizenship, with all the benefits, usufructs and advantages obtaining therefrom — in exchange for 1% taxes?
Please answer as honestly as your conscience permits.
To what preposterous purposes are your tax monies channeled?
Mr. Musk and his understrappers within the Department of Government Efficiency (do not laugh!) have already cited example upon example.
I am certain you are aware of them. Thus I need not itemize them.
Yet I hazard many, many additional outrages lurk within the federal budget.
Deficits to the Farthest Horizon
Meantime, deficits mount with each passing day, month and year.
This year’s deficit is projected to exceed $1.9 trillion — exceeding even last year’s $1.8 trillion.
And multi-trillion-dollar deficits loom from horizon to horizon.
The Congressional Budget Office divines $2.5 trillion annual deficits across the following decade.
Meantime, the identical Congressional Budget Office projects the nation’s debt — running presently to $36.7 trillion — will scale a delirious $52.1 trillion across the same space.
How do you like it?
Debt Kills
What represents the greatest burglar of America’s fiscal future?
The answer — at present — is interest payments to service the nation’s monstrous debt.
Thus the nonpartisan Peterson Foundation reports that:
- In 2024, interest costs on the national debt totaled $881 billion — surpassing most other components of the federal budget…
- CBO projects that interest costs in 2025 will total $952 billion — an 8 percent increase from the year before…
- Over the next decade, the U.S. government’s interest payments on the national debt are now projected to total $13.8 trillion — the highest dollar amount for interest in any historical 10-year period and nearly double the total spent over the past two decades after adjusting for inflation.
The Ruthless Mathematics of Debt
Are Americans prepared to meet these obligations through the honest proceeds of taxation?
I am very far from convinced that we are.
All the while, historian Niall Ferguson has arrived upon a conclusion.
His researches reveal that a nation that spends more on debt service than on military spending descends inevitably into decline.
Last year the United States crossed that frightful threshold.
And I neglect to mention the additional tax burdens that Social Security, Medicare, Medicare and the rest impose.
The taxes required to fund them mount and mount.
How Much More Civilization Can America Take?
When Justice Holmes argued taxes are the price we pay for civilization in 1909… the tax bite for the standard American equaled perhaps 3.5% of his intake.
The 16th Amendment — with its income tax — had not yet acquired the constitutional wink.
That is, the standard American was far freer than the medieval serf… by that standard at least.
And today?
The average American worker’s contribution to civilization runs to perhaps 34% of his intake.
Some Americans contribute less. Yet many contribute more.
Perhaps you sort into the latter category.
Are You Truly Free?
Take aboard the foregoing argument. A question arises, invariably:
Can a man who shoulders a 34% tax burden label himself truly free?
Not by the medieval standard can he label himself free. Recall the 10% tax burden of the serf.
Then recall the 34% average American burden.
Additional questions dangle in the air. For example:
How much more civilization can the United States endure under present taxation?
How can that civilization survive… if it must first tax itself to death?
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
