Tax Day Sparks Reflections on Federal Spending, Wealth Inequality

This tax day, writers across the spectrum are reflecting on America’s tax system.

From the Right: A writer in the Washington Examiner (Lean Right bias) called tax day “one of the worst days of the year” where Americans must “pay the government thousands to avoid prison time.” Criticizing federal spending, the writer calls on liberals to voluntarily pay additional taxes, writing, “If liberals want a bigger government that requires more tax dollars and higher deficits, they should lead by example and contribute more money to the government.”

From the Center: A writer in The Fulcrum (Center bias) compared America’s tax rates to those of European countries, concluding, “it turns out that Americans pay out as much as those ‘high-taxed’ Europeans — but we get a lot less for our money.” From healthcare to free college, the writer argued that“Europeans can count on these forms of support, and for less money out of their own pockets, while most Americans cannot.”

From the Left: Writers in Mother Jones (Left bias) argued that at the state level, “taxes worsen America’s yawning wealth gaps rather than easing them,” adding that states “more aggressively collect on tax debts from people in financial hardship than the Internal Revenue Service does, in ways that often make it harder for low-income residents to pay what they owe.” The piece lists potential solutions, including having a “robust taxpayer advocate’s office” and increased data collection “to better track how tax policies affect people by race and income.”