LoveNotHate wrote:
GrungeGrrl wrote:
If Germany and other European countries offer free tuition University, why can't USA do it too?
It's not free there.
The students will pay some of the highest taxes in the world for the rest of their lives.
No, they won't, I can't help de-lurking because I'm always so amused at how this "Europe high-tax" myth just gets tossed around like candy. As someone who's done business on 4 continents, I can tell you that US taxes are not any lower than in Europe or any other place in the world, in fact depending on the state, they're often a bit higher.
What the "Europe = high tax" claims always forget is that the United States has a lot more different ways you get dinged from taxes than in Europe. So sure, if you look at your marginal rate that you pay on April 15 alone, you'll get the illusion that US taxes are lower. But you'll be forgetting that in the USA, you're also paying all kinds of local and state-level taxes that you won't have to pay in Europe, plus property taxes, vehicle and other registration type fees, import and exchange taxes depending on the occupation. Oh, and payroll taxes-- heavy, heavy, heavy payroll taxes, if you own a small business you'll see that the payroll taxes are horrendous in America and it's a big reason the tax foundations rate the US as one of the worst places to do business in, it's just that employees don't see them taken from the paycheck off the top so don't know they exist.
Most of these taxes actually don't even exist in Germany or other countries, and when you look at the total tax rate, it's around the same or even a little less than in the US. Yet Germans, Scandinavians, French, Italians, Spaniards, heck a lot of Asia and South America unlike Americans, get free health care (nobody goes broke from medical bills or splitting up a marriage), free college if they're good enough to quality, tons of vacation and even childcare. And it's not because they have higher taxes, it's because they don't waste their tax money on corruption like bailing out banker criminals or spending trillions on wars like the USA does. Yes, most German students don't go to university, you have to qualify, but students who are up to par have no debt when they graduate, are free to start businesses and create jobs, and this adds far more to the economy than student loans do, plus even the Germans who don't go to college get solid trade training. And their national health care systems in Europe, Asia and South America? Trillions of dollars cheaper than the US for profit system, so they actually save money on taxes by having health care that covers everybody, most of US health is spend on waste and fraud, it's ridiculous!
15 Nov 2015, 8:15 am
