After one adds up all the taxes they pay before getting a paycheck (state, federal, SS, etc), the taxes paid in after tax monies (property, fuel, excise, sales, tobacco, liquor, phone/cable/internet, etc) and the non-tax taxes (water, sewer, power) at the end of the year, it is startling to see most only get to keep/spend far less than half of their original earnings. We didn't have a federal income tax prior to 1913. We didn't have towns and cities drunk on tax revenues looking for an even bigger bite out of your pie. Think how grand life could be without the extreme taxation we face today and how limited the debt slavery would be if people were able to keep most of the money they earned. It would solve a lot of our modern day problems.