Should citizens be responsible for poor budgetary practices by our elected officials?

Why should citizens be the brunt of increased taxes because our elected officials continue to spend more than what they take in? They continue to put the squeeze on us when they come up short. They continue to get great health care benefits, and above average pay when they're supposed to be temporary public servants. They've made a career out of being politicians, and they've reaped numerous benefits on the backs of hard working Americans. They want us to sacrifice for their INCOMPETENCY!!! They're ready to foreclose on your house if you can't pay your taxes, they'll throw you in jail if you don't pay your fines, and they'll throw you in jail or garnish your wages if you can't pay your taxes. Yet when our government can't pay it's bills, they reach into our pockets without asking!! We can't throw these thief's in jail, nor can we charge them interest for increasing our taxes. We can't garnish their wages and we can't take ownership of their buildings. We have no say when they use our tax money to bail out corporations that have conned hard working people out of money and home. Yet they don't think twice about reaching into our pockets and "stealing" our hard earned money!!!

These elected officials should be forced to cut their pay in half. Their benefits should be slashed and raises should be frozen until they can get our house in order. (What employer allows their workers to vote for their own raises?) They go into office talking about spending cuts, but instead of drastically cutting a military budget ($663,255,000,000) that spends six times more than the 2nd highest military budget in the world (China $98,800,000,000), they would rather cut programs and raise taxes on us. Instead of eliminating Federal Departments like education that should be locally run they continue to expand them.

The local and state governments are just as bad. They continue to outspend and expect citizens to bail them out. Our local property taxes are skyrocketing and the way they assess are homes is just plain deceitful!
People are still expected to pay school taxes when they don't even have kids attending public school anymore!
They continue to allow charitable organizations and churches a no tax status. Yet these organizations use the same city services as everyone else!!! So who has to pick up the smaller tax base? How much are they going to tax us until we say enough is enough!! These slime ball politicians would be kicked out on their butt if they worked in the private sector.

Now that I've blown off some steam, is anyone else here as ticked off as I am the way these self-centered politicians keep on stealing our hard earned money?

Star & Flag my friend, I'm a home owner who can't stand the out of control nonsense spending. I lose sleep over these ridiculous taxes, my home is outrageously over taxed based on it's value, and they just want more and more all the time, meanwhile things just go from bad to worse.
Based on THEIR logic, the more taxes we pay, the worse things seem to get, soooo... why are we paying more for less? And, why aren't they tapping into the military and DHS spending and giving money back to the local states and towns? Rhetorical questions.

reply to post by JibbyJedi


Where I live, people don't like to add on to their homes because they can't afford to pay for the increase in property taxes. I built a small addition on my house a few years ago. I wasn't even done putting up the shell and a city tax assessment guy showed up and started measuring the size of my addition!!! They couldn't wait to add me to their property tax increase list.

I really think the way they assess property taxes is ridiculous. I didn't increase the frontage of my house so why should I be taxed more? If you add another bathroom they increase your taxes! You aren't using anymore water just because you have another bathroom. It's just another way for the city to increase income so they can spend, spend, spend.

Well said.
Voting them out doesn't seem to work.
Maybe one day people will get mad enough to actually do something about it.

Sadly I think when it happens it won't be because people are tired of the corruption, greed, and tyranny.

I think it will be all the human leeches angry because their welfare and food stamps stopped coming.

Its sad in this great country you work your whole life to buy a house, and when you retire
you cant stay in it. cause the taxes are to high..something is wrong with this picture

Where else in the world do you see - besides politicians and corporate executives - they vote themselves raises... WTF is up with THAT--
our last round of raises to our Cdn local Health Board executives - they gave themselves a 30% raise in pay. When we are trying to save the last bastions of our public health care - the founding province of universal medicare is being sold out by the middle and top end management.

This sounding familiar anywhere else in this world?
HAVE we had enough YET??!

Originally posted by watchitburn
Well said.
Voting them out doesn't seem to work.
Maybe one day people will get mad enough to actually do something about it.

Sadly I think when it happens it won't be because people are tired of the corruption, greed, and tyranny.

I think it will be all the human leeches angry because their welfare and food stamps stopped coming.

Your last sentence says it all.

I agree with the sentiment of the op and others who have posted.

However, as to the topic question, yes, the citizens not only should be responsible, they are. People keep electing the same type of people. All too often, they vote for someone who has some association with family or a business or organization they like, OR they are so opposed to the current group/person in office they want to get anyone else in. [edit] They fall for the campaign slogans and marketing, instead of researching the candidates history.

Recently there was an election where I am, and the two candidates are from different parties and have different practices on record. From their websites issues section, they were both vague and seemed to have identical stances on the issues. It takes a lot of time and effort to research and fact check a candidate, and people are either unwilling, or simply don't have the time and resources with all the other time consuming aspects of life. [/edit]

I have some sympathy for those who vote in new people, only to get screwed over once again. Those who keep voting in those who are dirt bag politicians, I hope it gets worse for them.

The beautiful and just aspect of a republic is we get exactly what we ask for.