American Dream Case

I am overly surprised with the information presented in this article. With roughly over 300 million citizens in the U.S, in 2009 only 53% of these people payed federal income tax, while the other 47% are paying next to nothing and in many cases profiting from the government. I strongly believe in the “American Dream”, the ideology that America is a place where any thing is possible and a man or women can earn a modest living with hardwork and dedication, it seems as though this ideology is being skewed. I’m not againist the wealthy paying their fair share of taxes, but it seems like they may be carrying the entire load. I believe that if we create programs to benefit everyone, everyone should pay into them not just the top 10%. The article points out that the financial recession of 2008 contirbuted a lot to this overall affect, and that years prior to 2009,the Bush Administartion inacted several tax laws that saved the top 10% of taxpayers million of dollars and negatively affected the middle class. The artcile also sates that federal income taxes are the #1 source of income for the government, netting an estimated $900 billion annually. With the top 10% of Americans contributing the most, I believe that this system needs to be restructured. I somewhat agree with the flat tax rate, where everyone just pays a percentage of their income without recoginizing deductions, but being as though I am a college student, those deductions greatly affect my overall federal tax return. I belive that there is a better system where everyone would benefit and pay their respective portion, we as taxpayers just need to work towards it. Also, I believe that this article doesn’t point out that most of the taxes that the middle and lower class Americnas pay are in the form of regressive taxes, such as sales tax, social security, and medicare. Also many working middle class Americans pay a substantial higher effective rate than the wealthy.

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