It ain't tricklin' down folks!

According to the Congressional Budget Office, since 1979:
After-tax income increased by 275% for the wealthiest 1% of Americans
After-tax income increased by 18% for the poorest 20%

in 2005-2007, right before the Great Recession, the top 20% of the population earned more after-tax income than the entire bottom 80%...

The obvious case that some will make in light of these statistics is that they deserve it. They work harder, they make the right decisions.
Am I to believe that I am that much lazier and that much more ignorant?It feels like I work really hard every day; I'm certainly very tired at the end of a day...
I certainly don't see a 275% increase in my after-tax income ANYtime soon.

Maybe the wealth isn't trickling back down after all...

Don't get me wrong... I don't feel entitled to an increase in my income. If you think about it on a world wide scale, I live a pretty fantastic life full of wonderful toys and comforts beyond the wildest dreams of billions of people.

What drives me nuts is that a vast amount of the 'wealth' in this country has been pooled among 1% of Americans and they have turned our elections into a war of campaign donations while appointing themselves to positions of power so they can use tax payer's money to 'bail' each other 'out.'

They've even stopped paying a reasonable amount of taxes. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm a staunch opponent of high taxes for everyone and loathe big governments.

Alas, we all have to pay our share of taxes to keep the system going. It wasn't until GE paid absolutely $0 (ZERO) in taxes on $5.1 BILLION in profits in 2010 that I realized maybe, just maybe, not everyone was paying their share of taxes.

The statistics from our own government:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf

Bribes for peace

Turning a blind eye to the fact that there wouldn't even be an Israel without our financial and military support, our illustrious leaders have decided that its time to give them more of our tax dollars.

What other way could we get them to seriously consider resuming peace negotiations for their own good?

There are no details. Us simps don't deserve an explanation.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: US offers Israel incentive plan to save peace talks(bbc)

Taxpayer's receipt

Thanks to the folks at Third Way for throwing this one together. Its a look at what you spent your taxes on if you are a median wage earner in the U.S. in 2009.

Please visit Third Way for details, this is from page 3

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: An itemized list of what your taxes pay for(Marketplace)

Peeling back the Band Aid

Get ready to have your stomach turned. But at least yours is full...

You all (30s and older) will remember the 1985 Band Aid and other relief efforts pursued by governments and other organizations around the globe to help alleviate the 1984-85 droughts in Ethiopia that left most Ethiopians malnourished if they weren't one of the 1 MILLION who starved to death. A host of jokes about sandwiches and Ethiopians followed, but many Ethiopians were saved by these individual and government donations.

What you won't remember:
At the direction of the CIA (they deny it, of course) hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars from these efforts were siphoned off into rebel groups who bought weapons to fight the Russian backed Ethiopian government of the time.

Here's some key information that will set your stomach to turning:

In one instance, a member of Christian Aid bought sacks of grain inside of Ethiopia worth $500 MILLION. Underneath the handful of grain sacks that Christian Aid inspected were many more sacks of fine Ethiopian sand. Yum!

The man who swindled Christian Aid into spending all this money on sand, Meles Zenawi, went on to become Ethiopia's prime minister in 1991.

He remains the PM to this very day in spite of having used money intended to help his fellow citizens to kill them with guns instead.

The deputy head of the CIA at the time sought to "impose ever stiffer costs on the Soviet Union for its Third World adventurism." What better way to do this than sell bags of sand to aid groups in order to use the money to buy guns? (I'll bet many of those guns were bought from the U.S.)

The deputy head of the CIA at the time was none other than our very own Secratary of Defense, Robert Gates. He's no Prime Minister of a third world country, but he has certainly been well rewarded for his career choices.

I can't even sum this one up in a quick snide sentence. As an American citizen, I apologize to the world...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Ethiopia famine aid 'spent on weapons'(bbc)

How dare we legislate without input from Europe

In October of 1998, the Fairness in Music Licensing Act was passed in the U.S. in a way that amended our copyright laws. The FMLA permits, under certain conditions, the playing of radio and television music in public places (bars, shops, restaurants, etc.) without the payment of a royalty fee.

Seems pretty fair to me. Having a television in the waiting room or a game on at the bar is a matter of convenience. I'd have a hard time believing that said television was the draw that brought people through the door. No royalty fees are necessary because no profit is being made from the content being displayed.
A matter of discussion, to be sure, but I'm not sure its a discussion we need to have with the world.
But, Oh No, Not This Time.

5 months after our law was enacted, a handful of, and I quote, 'European Communities' went to the World Trade Organization to complain. Of course, the WTO summarily discovered that a substantial majority of eating and drinking establishments and close to half of retail establishments were covered by the business exemption.
I've yet to see any reason for the Europeans to step into what we do in our establishments, but to this, they cry foul. This apparently violates an agreement we signed long before.

Seeing that the 'European Communities' were on to something and that the WTO was about to start shitting U.S. tax dollars, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, and Switzerland jumped on board to complain of this as 'third parties.'

Of course, the WTO found us at fault. Demanded we change our laws and fined us a great deal of money. Money of which we are paying to this day.

I've already gone far enough, if not too far in this relatively uninteresting bit of bureaucratic red tape. But I'll summarize:
Because we adjusted our copyright law to allow businesses run a television in their establishment, we are attacked, sued, fined and ordered to pay restitution to a random smattering of countries from around the world. (Explain to me how our law affected Japan and why they have a right to damages from us because I watched a game at the bar last week)

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: DISPUTE SETTLEMENT: DISPUTE DS160 (WTO)
(Thanks to a Slate story for the link)

Extortion on a grand scale

The Mafia can only dream of such numbers...

Where to start... Where to start...

Ok. As we all know, we pay private security firms in our current wars to help get shit done without having our enlisted men do it all. How this is cheaper than doing it ourselves isn't really clear, but apparently, this is the only way we can get our wars done. Whatever.

So far, so good.

In Afghanistan, the US and other forces decided that since we're pumping countless tons of cold hard cash into private hands to help run this public war, we should spend a little of that money to Afghan contractors. For example, one of our trucking contracts makes up:
5% OF AFGHANISTAN'S GDP!

So far, so good. Kinda wise even. Since we're throwing away bills by the ton, why not put some of it towards keeping our bored enemies busy. Too busy working to join your little jihad.

Problem is, there aren't enough Afghans in the country to actually do the kind of security work that is needed to truck shit around their country. Even without a war going on, the [lack of] roads and mountains make trucking in this area difficult at best.

So far, getting a bit murky.

In order to get the trucking done that they need to, they take a pallet or two of the tons of cash we gave them and spend it on protection money from local warlords. Its generally a pay per truck sliding fee scale thing.

So far, ... Wait. Aren't these the same local warlords that make up and support the Taliban?

Yes. A large portion of the money we pay to Afghans to haul our shit around their country goes straight into the hands of the Taliban. In fact, it is believed that this makes up a significant portion of the Taliban's war budget.

Take a minute. Let that soak in...

We invade a country, then give it the money needed to fight back. This is worse than paying them to not shoot at us as we did in Iraq. I mean come on... Didn't we already learn all this a few decades ago as the Fed brought the Mafia down to a tolerable level of power? Paying someone to not attack you only gives them more money and power to demand that you pay them more next time!

I don't even want to spend much time thinking that while we are assisting in paying the Afghans not to attack other Afghans that there is that much more money around to attack Americans instead.

Without us, they couldn't afford to fight us.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Private contracts drive Afghan economy (marketplace)