Why is it that those on the right think that taxes equal socialism?

I think paying taxes is one of the most American things you can do, because our tax dollars go towards making our country a better place for everyone. The thing is, Democrats have this nasty tendency of burning through our tax dollars faster than we can pay them. They take more than what is allotted and try to pay for every single thing. They bought out the banks, they bought out the car companies, and they continue to defend our welfare system which needs to be replaced. In a socialist state, money is supposed to be distributed based on the individual's contribution to society. Therefore, I do not that taxation is socialist, nor do I believe that the current projects that our taxes are funding are socialistic in nature. They go towards giving money to everyone, so that everyone has the exact same things, and that my friend is a little thing known as Communism.

Taxes don't = socialism. New gov't entitlements and programs = socialism.

UPDATE: So if the General Welfare, either in the Preamble or Article 1, Section 8, means the government can do whatever the hell it wants in the name of promoting the General Welfare, why do the 9th and 10th Amendments even exist?

And if you look at Article 1, Section 8, why does it even bother listing those specific powers? After all, the Congress can do anything in the name of the General Welfare, right?

You have to look at the language. It is clear that in both cases, the Preamble and the first paragraph of Article 1, Section 8, they are laid out as the goals. Then the following portions, the Constitution and the rest of Article 1, Section 8 respectively, are how you get there.

It's not the taxes, it's the spending. The Constitution says what the government can spend money on. Money taken for extraconstitutional social programs is taken unnecessarily, according to the Constitution -- which intended for a government that couldn't even tax citizens directly.

And by the way, the General Welfare clause was part of a constitution which prohibited the direct taxation of citizens. So, it's implied that original intent did not deem the general welfare to mean anything so massive that the citizenry would have to pay income taxes to cover it. Authorizing taxes with the 16th Amendment did not change the original intent of General Welfare.

I have no problems with reasonable taxes being used to pay for Constitutionally mandated and Constitutionally valid purposes; eg. defense.

Therein lies the rub. The current tax rates are NOT reasonable. And they are being used more and more on items that the federal government has no business being involved in (eg health care, abortion, too many earmarks to even comprehend). And THIS administration is putting what has been a long slow road to socialism (tyranny) on the fast track and is using taxes as the catalyst for it.

So IF there is a perceived link between the two right now, blame BO and the liberal agenda because their actions are tying the two items together.

It's not necessarily the taxation, but for what those taxes used. And when you get Obama using recess appointments to institute a director for Obamacare, is a symptom of dictatorial powers -- those same powers that are required to enforce his brand of socialism. Axelrod this morning on ABCs This Week stated the reason for the appointment was that it is "too important" to be left to Congress. In truth, it is because Obama knew that his appointment would be questioned and proved regarding the "triage" of care provided by the government. "...too important" to allow the representation of the people to have input.

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson

"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson

No they don't. Excessive taxation of a small segment of the population is well on the way though. By taking from a few and distributing the wealth through the tax system to others, deemed more needy, the first tenet is enacted. More to the point, the government running banks, corporations and now health care , is by definition, socialism.

'Socialism' has become the Republicans favorite put-down word.

For years it was -liberal-. Anything the Republicans didn't like, or anyone they disagreed with was 'liberal'. So Hitler was liberal, and so was Stalin, and Mao and Pol Pot. If someone in the media reported something embarrassing or damaging to the Republicans, they'd just dismiss him as 'liberal', therefore he wasn't entitled to an opinion, and anything he said could be simply ignored as politically based. During primary campaigns they even called each other liberal!

After about 40 years, the word just lost its meaning altogether. It no longer had any shock value. So starting with the 2008 election campaigns they upped the rhetoric. They now used words like socialist, communist, marxist, and (curiously) fascist. They use them interchangeably, as if they all meant exactly the same thing.

As for taxes, Reagan popularized the idea that we could balance the budget by taxing LESS and spending MORE. It was a dumb idea but up to that point it had the great charm of never having been tried. It was tried, though, and it was a spectacular failure. But of course Republicans blamed this failure on Democrats, and still do. In order to believe in Reaganomics, one has to believe that we could cut our taxes by a huge amount, perhaps half, and not have to give anything up. Both the Bushes tried to do this and, in the process, also built up huge debts.

Listen to Tea Party speakers talk about taxes and you see that they never ever mention any govt. program of any size that they are willing to cut or eliminate. For years Republican presidents blamed welfare for their inability to balance the budget, but welfare was never more than 1% of the federal budget and if it was just stopped altogether you wouldn't notice the difference. The real reason for blaming welfare was to distract people, to get them angry at the poor and weak and disenfranchised for our problems, to distract them from the fact that it's really the RICH who are stealing us blind.

Calling taxes 'socialist' is just another way of saying 'I don't like taxes and I think they should be less.' If you look at how Republicans and conservatives use the word 'socialist' here on Yahoo Answers you can see they have no idea what the word really means.

I got news for you. Taxation without representation is exactly what we have today.

Obama seems to be high on the idea of taxing everybody into poverty yet he also seems to have everyone's back except the average everyday hard working tax paying american citizen.

This administration will bend over backwards and jump through hoops to appease terrorists and illegals but when we need help, we're told to go bleep ourselves.

We the employed are sick and tired of working day in and day out just to have our earnings confiscated while the dregs of society get a free ride on our backs while they give us the finger and turn our once nice areas into crime and drug infested slums.

When confiscatory taxation is allowing more than 50% of workers to pay ZERO income taxes, then yes, that's redistribution of wealthy, and inherently evil. These same non-taxpayers are now in the majority to vote themselves government benefits which they'll never have to pay for. That is a form of socialism.

Taxes alone don't equal socialism. Excess taxes for entitlements to those who don't contribute and bailouts and government takeovers equals socialism.