Start a Tax Revolt! Deduct more money from your 401K!

That's right, refuse to pay a larger portion of your taxes. And it's legal. With Gov Quin and the Illinois congress raising income taxes, now is a good time to say, "I'm not going to take it any more!" The same is true in other states. If the gov cannot do any belt tightening, maybe they should wear the belt a little higher: Let's choke off their air supply. By increasing your 401K deduction by several percentage points, you reduce your tax deduction to both state and federal governments, while putting away a nice bit of collateral all for you. It's now a larger nest egg, compared to income after taxes and it grows. Not a bad tradeoff. Keep more of your hard-earned wealth while increasing the pressure to make spending reforms.

Whether you're a democrat or republican, there are two realities: High unemployment is undesireable and negative cash flow in the government is unsustainable. Depending on who you ask, we are past, at or very, very near the limit of how much more can be spent on public projects, so it no longer makes a lot of sense to be either democratic or republican.

The government doesn't produce any products, so every headcount in public service has to be supported by many workers that do make and sell products in the private sector. Some retired former state employees make $100,000 per year pensions, how many productive private workers does it take to pay for each of them in the form of taxes while at the same time funding active programs? 10? 20? 50? 100 workers? It's a big burden and it's growing. We can't keep paying more and more for something we don't even need.

Can you picture the negotiations that led to this? The unions must have demanded $100K pensions. The legislators feebly protested. But it wasn't actually their money, and they didn't even have to raise taxes at that time, so they could shorten the unpleasant confrontation. And they get many guaranteed votes. Quite a pyramid scheme. They caved in no time. Stuck it to the taxpayers because that was easier than standing up for reasonableness.

Increase your 401K. It's good for everybody.