My Plea to Stop Overtaxing Our Citizens

My plea and rant to get the state to come up with ways to get what they need without over taxing our citizens.

I am writing this blog because I feel we have a major concern about the economy. As someone who has a disability who is trying to go to school, I worry about my future, especially my economic future. I am going to school to get a full time job, so that I will not have to depend on social security for my income and become a productive member of society. However, I feel that the productive members of society are being, well gypped.

Part of being a productive member of society is paying taxes, tons of them. I would like to own a home someday. But to own a home, there is property taxes, city taxes, and other taxes. Then one has to take care of that home. Heat, water, sewer, oil, gas, repairs, insurance, and everything else that goes into a home. But what if one drives to work? There are car taxes. Then when one goes to work, they take out tons of taxes out of the paycheck. Then what is left is a take home check. But wait, one has to pay the bills (there are many), rent or mortgage, and more taxes. There are even taxes on the bills. This makes me cringe because look at the economy in our state. There are hardly no good paying jobs, people losing jobs, and constant raising of taxes. This gives me anxiety of bettering my future.

I can see how taxes are supposed to help with our schools, and other things. Then there are things that taxes go to that could be considered a waste.  But wait a minute here, there are people who work in government and other sectors that get extremely high wages, on top of raises each year. This has me thinking, why are they going after the poor and middle class families for these taxes. They work very hard and struggle to support their families just to live. Most people I know have a hard time making ends meet. Some are families who work full time, but have to pay half or more of their pay check just to get day care for their children so that they could work. Some are senior citizens who live on very little retirement and/or social security, yet pay so much money for medical expenses so they can live to see another day. If one gets over-taxed on top of the expenses that keep going up how will they live? How will they survive especially in an economy where they could have their wages lowered or even lose their job, and yet still have to take care of the basic needs of their family?

Look at it this way, what if we end up with so overtaxed that we have no money left over for things that the state takes for taxes. What if we have to give up our cars and start taking public transportation? Means no money from car taxes, gas taxes, or even our DMV would lose money because no one would be registering their cars or renewing licences. What if we could not afford to send our children to college? Financial aid only pays for so much and only very few qualify for the Pell grants to pay 100% of their education without any Estimated Family Contribution. Students loans could be good, but with the increase of the interest rate going from 3.4% to 6.8% many people can't afford to go to school or fear that they can't pay them off. That means the state has no money to pay our colleges. It also means that we would not have many high paid workers entering the workforce because not many would have the college degrees to obtain those jobs. What we have to start living in apartments buildings that allow section 8 because we would be considered too low income or worse, end up homeless? There would be no one paying property taxes, so the cities end up losing money.  Look at what the state, cities, and country can lose if we don't have those "luxuries" because we are too broke getting our very little income taxed left and right.

I may be someone who has not experienced this for herself, but I have a family who has. I want to live and work like everyone else. I have one Plea: PLEASE STOP OVER TAXING US CITIZENS AND COME UP WITH BETTER SOLUTIONS TO SOLVE THE STATE'S FINANCIAL NEEDS.


Bryan Palumbo August 03, 2012 at 02:56 PM
Well written, Maya. I wrote something similar to the Providence Journal last year. http://news.providencejournal.com/letters-to-the-editor/2011/11/bryan-m-palumbo-soldier-pleads-please-fix-ri.html This is also a good link to read when figuring out where all these taxes go to. http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/?p=1852
Maya Lincoln August 03, 2012 at 11:05 PM
Thank you Bryan. I loved your article. I am so sorry that you also have to go through these awful taxes. You are a soldier and a hero, who fought for our country (and I thank you for your service everyday) and yet you also get affected. My father retired from the Rhode Island National Guard army reserves and him and my mom are struggling to survive on his retirement pay. Thank you again for your wonderful reply and sharing your article. It was well written. I also love the other article. It shocked me to find out the truth where our taxes go.


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