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Do you think taxes are more of a major player in the middle-class squeeze than rising mortage payments?
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If you mean the hidden tax on the middle class, aka inflation, then yes... if you mean local, state, federal income tax, consumption taxes, property taxes, etc... then no. If anything they have decreased recently.
No, taxes are not what is causing the "middle class squeeze". Rising mortgage payments are only affecting a small percentage of Americans. The real culprit is inflation and that has little to do with taxes and everything to do with monetary and fiscal policy. If anything the government has been very lax about taxation, and very lenient towards real inflation- disregarding the price of food and fuel, for instance, even though people need food and fuel to survive.
Inflation as measured by the feds is still pretty low. It is the rising cost of crude and natural gas that is more and more imported.Then there is the overall credit crunch from the middlecalss using too much credit to finance their way of life. Mortgages that are too large for income levels conbined with other credit debt is the major problem.Taxes on middle income are pretty low if you look at where the feds get the vast majority of taxes from.Many staTe taxes on miidle class are much higher than tHE federal taxes.The feds have always borrwed too mch money and most of it is from foreigners because people here have very poor savings rates althought the cost of living is realy cheaper than in the foreign countries we borrow from.
I agree with most posters, it's not due to rising taxes, at least I haven't seen any tax increases.
With the Fed lowering the discount rate and the resulting increase in the money supply, it's counterintuitive to normal response of raising the rate to fight inflation, so we will see if that policy will really work, but so far it hasn't looked promising. In itself inflation isn't bad, but it will cause people to save less and consume more, which will hurt overall growth for the country in the long-run.
I can easily accept the posters statements that point to a slowly rising inflation and the punishing effects of fuel costs which effect food costs and a wide array of things too numerous to mention. IMO we need to rise to action at the polls and other areas to oppose the ideology we have seen from our Gov't. for more than a decade. We need to stop the pimps from further prostituting our nation for special interests and personal gain. We need American leadership that desires to lead America first and foremost. We haven't had that for some time and it shows--especially among our large middle-class.
If you mean the hidden tax on the middle class, aka inflation, then yes... if you mean local, state, federal income tax, consumption taxes, property taxes, etc... then no. If anything they have decreased recently.
If you think that property taxes are not a problem, you ought to see what's been happening with property taxes in my area. Completely out of control. The locals here can be pretty creative in finding ways to spend your money.
Bush agrees that the rich should pay less taxes, and passes thru Congress a $1.3 TRILLION dollar tax-cut of which 90% goes to 3% of the wealthiest Americans, or his 'base' as he likes to call them. Later he passes another whopping $500 billion tax cut for his rich friends.
If you mean the hidden tax on the middle class, aka inflation, then yes...
Yeppers, that's what i mean!
One might argue, since the advent of the 1913 'progressive tax', inflation has been steadily creeping, or should i say, squeezing.
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