That, or oil price going to $1000 a barrel but (and because) volume dropping dramatically. Anyways as long as you're not making commitments based on hypothetical future income, it's not that important.

I will be one to just add...that it scares me a little that a 100K earning family which is more then 2 times the national average pays no taxes... Government services cost money (IMHO more then they should) and if 2 times the average family down doesn't pay (except for road taxes and sales tax i guess?) thats troubling to me...

I think the vast majority DO pay in taxes. There are lots of various tax shelters, loopholes, etc. that are available, and I think there's nothing wrong in taking full advantage of them. The uber-rich are taking full advantage of them, why can't the little guy do the same (cause really...to someone in the top 0.1%...if you're making a "mere" six figures, you're a small fry)? But most don't/can't. Unless you're living way beneath your income, how easy would it be to up your 401-k contribution an extra 30%, to shuffle it around various ways, etc.? And many want/need every single penny they can get TODAY, even if it means less money available tomorrow.

Maybe we should have a system like this:

We take the total amount spent on truly universal things that the majority of us agree we need and can't easily be taxed based on use:

Domestic defense
Weather forecasting
etc.

Divide that total amount by the number of people in the country. Each person gets a bill for that much.

Anything else we pay for simply through use taxes.

Want to picnic in a national forest...cough up $80. Why should those of us who choose to dine at expensive restaurants pay for your freeloading frugality?

Want to get rescued when you do something stupid in your boat...Pay up or we auction it off.

Roads get paid for by much higher gas taxes.

Transportation security by higher ticket fees

Have a kid? YOU pay the full cost of putting him through public school. Let's see, that $60k teacher has 30 kids so each parent pays $2000 a year per kid plus a fee for the building, the lights, the principal, the janitor, etc.

Want to support sending the military overseas...voluntarily pay into a government fund for this. The pentagon only gets to spend what people have voluntarily donated. (They part to defend the country within its borders is the only part paid by mandatory tax and we all pay the same amount.)

I could go on and on.

Personally, I think the rich should pay more because they can afford it and benefit from a great deal more intangibles like the legal system. But they likely already do pay more than their fair share for the stuff everyone uses like roads and defense! So let's cut them some slack on that and move toward making the little guy pay up for what he uses!

I've often thought this should be the case... same goes for hikers/mountain climbers that go out in a blizzard and get lost (and similar acts). Why should everyone else pay for their idiocy?

The money precedes the health and affection in the today's world unfortunately. It's a long story, but the essence, that if he gets into a material bankruptcy apart from a family's one's own fault, can concentrate on surviving his days only already.
Terrible, when I cannot buy the medicine, only if one are family members helps, but this may not become eternal. Not to complain want, indeed we try to help ourselves with perseverance. There is a trouble with his better eye because of my expensive husband's brain tumour, unfortunately my left eye wrong. I would like me to manage to find some kind of Internet work working well in order to be able to help my daughter raising his infants alone very much. I work hard for him, let him be only what. I understand that the situation is very heavy on all of the world now, but I would like to be worth us not having to live in terror very much yet. Not talking about it, I know that being on holiday was never my family this big luxury, but experience which cannot be forgotten certainly, when somebody may have a rest and then give I may have a lord free from care. Not we did not reach it because of work-shyness since my husband worked 47 years, i 42 years.