None of them are free. If you want those things, you are either going to have to reallocate funds from other government services or tax your citizens more. Knowing that government spending has a lovely habit of
increasing over time rather than decreasing - guess which one they would do?
Let's say I make $31,960 a year in the state of California (the median income in the most populous state), and I am also a resident of California. My monthly income would be around $2,663, and using this
calculator:
- 9.96% of my monthly paycheck ($265) goes to federal income tax.
- 1.61% of my monthly paycheck ($43) goes to state income tax.
- 6.20% of my monthly paycheck ($165) goes to Social Security.
- 1.45% of my monthly paycheck ($39) goes to Medicare.
- 1.00% of my monthly paycheck ($27) goes to state disability insurance tax.
I now have $2,125 remaining per month, or $25,500 a year. Taxes have taken out around 20% of my paycheck. Now let's look at what else I need to cover. I probably can't afford a house with this level of income, so we'll say I'm a rentfag.
This website is telling me that the average rent in California is $1,488 (lol). I have just $1,175 remaining.
Let's assume I own a car to go to my job, where I make the rest of my measly paycheck. The most common car in the state of California (contrary to what someone who's watched
Drive (2011) will tell you) is a Toyota Camry. Let's assume I own a used 2011 Toyota Camry for affordability.
This website tells me the MSRP is $27,500, but let's be generous and assume I'm able to haggle it down to $20,000 on account of it being a 10-year old shitbox. Assuming a interest rate of 3.11% and a loan period of 60 months, my monthly payment for this car is $360. I have just $815 of monthly income remaining.
So, I've paid taxes, rent/utilities, and a car. I still need to pay for food, gas, and any other surprise expenses that might come up.
The USDA says one person should pay somewhere between $165 to $345 on groceries a month - let's assume I'm frugal and I pay $165. I have $650 of monthly income remaining.
The 2011 Toyota Camry has a combined MPG of 26. Let's assume my two-way commute every day is 60 minutes,
as is the case for the average California citizen. Let's also assume I'm going an average of 45 mph during my commute. If I go to work five days a week, I am driving 225 miles a week, or 900 miles a month. 900 miles/26 MPG is equal to 34.62 gallons of gas, and the average gas price today in California is $4.705. 34.62 x 4.705 = $162.88 a month. Let's round up to $163 because decimals are gay - I now have $487 of disposable monthly income remaining.
There's several things I didn't calculate. I did not throw in a 401k payment. I did not throw in a student loan payment. I did not account for any surprise payments, because those are surprises and impossible to predict. I did not throw in frivolities like a gym membership, a streaming subscription, etcetera. Any one of these factors or a combination of them is going to financially fuck me in the ass worse than I already am. Now you want to jack up my already high expenses so welfare queens get all this crazy shit for "free" while I'm stuck footing their bill with next to no disposable income because of it?
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