BY FRANK HILL

Reprinted from telemachus.com

Have you ever sat down and really thought about the amount of money you pay in taxes versus the direct benefits you receive from the government?

Alan Simpson’s rather salty but descriptive comment about Social Security could be politely amended to read: ‘The US federal government has 310 million teats on it to milk!’.

Depending on how many programs a person derives benefits from or tax preferences he or she uses, the number could be 1 billion for all we know.

Do this little exercise right now. Add up all the taxes you pay on one side of the ledger on a piece of paper or Excel spreadsheet. And then add up all the taxes that you saved from any tax deductions you use each year on your tax form and grants you received from the federal government in any form and put them in the other column. Continue reading →