I really believe that taxes will be 50% higher – or more – in our near future.
Smoking will eventually be totally banned. The billions of dollars in tobacco tax revenue that are lost from tobacco sales will be passed on to the general public in the form of more taxes. And the increasingly high cost of fuel will cause people to drive so little that there will not be enough money in gas taxes collected to pay for highway upkeep. Therefore, taxes will have to increase for road repair.
Property taxes may not increase right away because of public outcry (especially in North Dakota), but since people will be having fewer children (due to the cost of raising and feeding them), there will be fewer kids in school, making the cost more per child. Taxes will have to climb to cover this.
Since health care will become totally unaffordable, the government will be in the health care business. It will cost billions, and the scams and fraud such as Medicare experienced will be part of the new health care system. This will be extremely costly and we will have to pay for it with more taxes.
Even though inflation will continue to rise, government workers, military officials and politicians will not spend less, so those still working will have to cover the spending with more taxes.
Tax increases will come about slowly, just as they always have – a slight increase at a time, but much more often. Since there will be fewer people working fewer hours, there will be fewer tax dollars collected. The result? Those who DO pay taxes will be paying more.
Less work will result in more welfare recipients and homeless people. This, combined with the ever-increasing illegal immigration, will cause a total collapse of the over-burdened welfare system. It will go broke, and the only thing to keep it alive? More taxes. Think about the layoffs and cutbacks that have already started because of the high energy costs. It’s only the beginning.
With more unemployment, more homeless and more illegal immigration comes more crime. The eventual threat of police and fire department lay-offs (which governmental agencies like to threaten us with) will cause the people to give in to more taxes, including increased property taxes.
Why don’t politicians threaten us by saying “If we don’t raise taxes, we’ll have to cut back on welfare, space travel, endowments to the arts and foreign aid”? No, they threaten us with education, fire and police lay-offs, so we suck it up and agree to more taxes. They ain’t stupid, are they?
This stuff is happening! When will the national debt be at the point of lenders calling in the notes? Will we “give up” or lose our country? Will it be repossessed? We are now MORE THAN broke. If we were a business, we’d be bankrupt!
What happens to a country that goes bankrupt? Where are we going and who in the hell is driving? We need to find another driver – and I don’t see one on the horizon.
Tom “Road” Blair
Website: www.tomroadblair.com