Taxing a Nation to Happiness

Here's a post at the Tax Prof blog that I find interesting, people in countries that have higher taxes are happier. The findings are published by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Tax Prof sites an article by Thomas Kostigen at Market Watch. From that article we have this quote:

Northern Europeans pay some of the highest taxes in the world. Danes pay about two-thirds of their income in taxes. Why be so happy about that? It all comes down to what you get in return. The Encyclopedia of the Nations notes that Denmark was one of the first countries in the world to establish efficient social services with the introduction of relief for the sick, unemployed and aged. ... Simply, you pay for what you get.

Taxes in the U.S. have taken on a pejorative association because, well, we are never really quite sure of what we get in return for paying them, other than the world's biggest military. Healthcare and other such social services aren't built into our system. That means we have to worry more about paying for things ourselves. Worrying doesn't equate to happiness.

This last piece is rather essential to understanding why it is that Northern European countries can be so frivolous with their taxes - they don't have to defend themselves - we do that for them. Kostigen concludes his article by saying:

Maybe it's time that we looked at taxes differently. We have to pay them anyway. So they might as well make us happy. If Northern Europe is any benchmark, the more we'd pay the happier we just may be.

Well, maybe we ought to do something else also, rethinking reasons why it is that we spend billions to keep these countries safe. I don't believe in isolationism but it might be time to rethink that and let those other countries that have the luxury of wasting their taxes on social programs and nothing on self defense face the prospect of actually having to spend their money on something other than their own self indulgences. Taxing a nation into happiness is easy when that nation has someone else to keep them out of trouble.

One other point could be made, yes it is true that the those countries where taxes are high the people get great benefits from their government, well how about this, stop taxing us so damned much and we might also be happy too because we would have more of our money to spent. We don't need a government to spend our own money on us - we can do that. Also, it is overlooked that not every penny collected in taxes is spent on our military - most of it is spent on social programs, which do nothing but create a welfare state, and on interest to pay for all of the borrowing. Now that the Obama is in power, we will see a larger and larger portion of tax revenues being spent on social programs and interest and no one will be any happier, because most of the squandering is on people who should be supporting themselves.