Is your tax money being wasted?
By laglen
@laglen (19759)
United States
April 19, 2010 8:57am CST
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/04/15/poll.wasted.taxes/index.html?hpt=Sbin
Nearly three-quarters of Americans say that the government wastes their tax dollars, according to a new national poll.
A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. survey released Thursday also indicates that roughly half the public believes the tax system is unfair, and as a result, four in 10 say they're angry about the amount of taxes that they pay.
Seventy-four percent of people questioned say that a lot of their tax dollars are wasted by the government; 23 percent say that some of their tax dollars are misspent and three percent say that not much of their tax dollars are wasted.
Americans are split on their overall opinion of the country's tax system: 49 percent say it's fair and 50 percent say it's unfair, according to the poll.
"Six in 10 Democrats say that the tax system is fair," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. "Republicans are split down the middle, with 49 percent calling it fair and 51 percent thinking it is unfair."
Four in 10 questioned say that they are angry about the amount of taxes they pay; 36 percent say they're satisfied and just under one in four say they don't have particular feelings on the issue.
Nearly half of Republicans questioned say they're angry, but that figure drops to 44 percent among Independents and 29 percent among Democrats.
The poll indicates growing public frustration with taxes over the past couple of decades.
"This is a significantly higher level of anger than existed during the 1980s," Holland added. "In 1985, only 27 percent were angry about the amount of taxes they had to pay, possibly a reflection of the tax cuts that Ronald Reagan instituted in his first year in office."
However, it appears that Americans aren't taking their anger out on the Internal Revenue Service.
"Only a quarter of all Americans think that the Internal Revenue Service should be abolished," Holland said.
Six in 10 say that the tax cuts passed in 2001 under George W. Bush that are set to expire this year should be made permanent, according to the survey.
The poll was conducted April 9-11, with 1,008 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey's overall sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.
I agree that our tax money is wasted. What is your opinion?
5 responses
@hofferp (4734)
• United States
19 Apr 10
I think there's a tremendous amount of waste, fraud and abuse in the system, and yes, I'm paying too much (but not as much as I use to when I worked!). What scares me is when the tax hikes begin next year. I'm truly afraid I could go underwater...my only option (I've thought this through thoroughly), put my house up for sale and hope it sells quickly (which may not be the case. It takes a special breed to want to live in the country where I live. There have been two houses up for sale for almost 4 years and two years. I've actually thought about putting it up for sale now, in anticipation of both the increases in taxes and the continuing poor housing market.) Stopping and cutting spending to decrease the deficit is going to hurt...everybody...or it should. This shouldn't be a rich only effort. Entitlement programs are going to have to be rolled back. It took us decades to get to this situation and it'll probably take decades to roll them back. But it has to be done. I know I will never collect what I've paid in to Social Security. I know I never used worker's compensation, unemployment, Medicaid... And depending on when the roll backs occur, I may never collect on what I've paid in to Medicare. All these programs and thousands more (including in the DoD, and especially in the DoE, Education, Health and Human Services, Agriculture, Interior, EPA, etc.) need to be rolled back, eliminated, etc. (Laglen, I'm not getting e-mail notices lately of your discussions. So I'm trying, once again, to catch up with you. 
)
) 1 person likes this
@hofferp (4734)
• United States
20 Apr 10
Yeah, land isn't cheap here. And even though my house took a $50K dip in the appraisal last year, it's still appraised at $470K. If I sold it, I might be able to buy a few acres and house somewhere less expensive. Wyoming would be great, but I'm just not a cold-weather person. I'm originally from SD and there there's no income tax and land value is cheap too. I might just go back to SD to the Black Hills... We'd be closer neighbors, than we are now.
1 person likes this
@OpinionatedLady (5965)
• United States
20 Apr 10
When I see things like the bail outs, funding for silly studies and people who take advantage of a system that seems to hold no one responsible but those who pay then yes I feel that my tax money is being squandered. Yes it makes me mad. Do I vote against these people yes! Everyone needs to stop complaining and do something, vote in new politicians who are not Dem.s and Repub.s.
@p_vadla (1685)
• India
20 Apr 10
In most of the nations the scenario is same.In some countries the precious tax collections are siphoned off to the black accounts of a few by way of corrupt means and this defeats the very purpose of providing better care to the tax payers at large.
1 person likes this
@trruk1 (1028)
• United States
19 Apr 10
It is probably correct that a lot of out tax money is wasted. So let's cut some expenditures. We have two wars going on, so we probably shouldn't cut defense spending. We never should have started the one in Iraq, but we are there and can't just quit. How about cutting Social Security payments? Many millions of Americans, most of whom are barely getting by as it is, would be enraged. So that won't work. How about Medicare? Same problem. Stop "wasting" money on highways and bridges? Traffic snarls, damaged roads, collapsing bridges. I don't think most people really want that.
The point is, every federal dollar spent benefits somebody. And that person wants spending cut--somewhere else.
@laglen (19759)
• United States
20 Apr 10
Thank you for your response.
the defense is actually the job of the Federal gov.
Social security/medicare are funds that the recipients have already paid for
highways/bridges, again infrastructure is the responsibility of fed
That being said, here are some waste -
Dept of ed this is a state issue
dept of health and human service - state issue
here are some links to some other waste
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Reports/2005/04/Top-10-Examples-of-Government-Waste
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2009
these are issues that are not federal issues.
@shivhae (51)
• Netherlands
19 Apr 10
to my opinion tax money is always wasted we pay a lot of tax and we dont see anything back from it. Makes me wonder were the tax money goes too because life circumstance is getting worse here and goiverment asks more tax and we have to pay more each time but what do they give us?? nothing they drive big cars go on holiday 5 times a year have big houses people in retirement homes dont have care because goverment wont give a dime to it, things are getting expensive people cant find jobs and goverment wont do anything to make it better they only make it worse
