The American Dream is being extinguished for many Americans. Many no longer believe that they have a fair chance to succeed. There are many reasons for this, poor education, lack of resources and fear, but one of  biggest reasons is taxes and the federal deficit. The current federal deficit is 16 trillion and growing. That comes out to almost 51,000 dollars for every American  (303 million American). That is just the deficit number but actual number of what the federal government owes is 114.5 trillion dollars. The 16 trillion would be like making the minimum payment on your credit card. The gross domestic product for the US is roughly 15 trillion.. Which means even if we could take all the money made on products in the US and paid it on our minimum payment we would still be short about 1 trillion dollars. To put it another way if we taxed the so-called wealthy (the 1%) and any persons making $250,000 at a

tax rate of 100% we would fund the governments obligations for about 3 days. With these numbers this is why the solution can longer be raising taxes on the rich it almost has to be that we cut spending

Every successful business will tell you that it is not only how much you make but how much you can keep. With taxes being the biggest expense that most of us will ever have over our lifetime. Taxes and federal spending have become major obstacles to the American dream.  So how did a country that was built on the premise of the individual freedom get to this place? Ironically the country that sought liberty from an oppressive Monarch who taxed them with no recourse or representation would end up itself being the largest expense in its citizen’s lives. How did the federal government get so big and out of control? The answer is simply let the rich pay for it, they have more than enough. The reasoning is “the country has needs therefore we should do it”. If we ran our finances in the same way that the government spends we would find ourselves in bankruptcy. An Example, Husband and wife have three children. Do the three children have the same say as to how money is spent in a family as the father and mother? In our own finances there is a correlation between what we make and what we spend. The biggest reason for this disconnect is the progressive tax system. The progressive tax system places more financial burden for the country on the wealthiest Americans. The top 10 percent of income earners paid 71 percent of all federal income taxes in 2009 though they earned 43 percent of all income. The bottom 50 percent paid 2 percent of income taxes but earned 13 percent of total income. About half of tax filers paid no federal income tax at all. So we have half of the population voting but not paying into the system the very thing that many of framers of the constitution feared has happened. It is always easier to spend the other guy’s money. Some will argue that it is only fair since they benefited more they should pay more and that government has a responsibility to level the playing field. This is flawed it supposes that all things being equal that outcome would be different. The problem with that argument is that there are persons who had greater obstacle than others to obtain wealth and others  who had  little obstacles and failed to succeeded. Government’s responsibility is to ensure that it’s citizens have the opportunity to succeed not guarantee success. Government is responsible to provide an infrastructure so that it’s citizens have a chance to be successful. What they do with that opportunity is up to them. Each citizen owes to the government the financially responsibility to ensure that government can do this regardless if they are successful or not. Just as a farmer buys seed to plant corn an his corn fails to grow because of  bad weather the framer can’t tell the merchant of seed that he shouldn’t have to pay since he had a crop failure, no he still owes the merchant. In the same way each American owes for the infrastructure. The solution is a flat tax so that each America pays the same percentage based on what they made so each America has some skin in the game.

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