So, let’s do the math on a typical $10 debit purchase.

If I earn $10, that means that I was required to pay taxes on the money which was previously more than $10. As a single head of household, my tax rate was about 27% on the federal side, plus another 8% or so on the state side here in California. So really, I would’ve started with about $13.50.

Then we pay sales tax, at least here in Cali. In the city that I live in, that rate is 9.75%. So that $10 now becomes $9.25.

Then, to use a debit card for my purchase, IF I am not required to pay a processing fee myself with that merchant, the merchant still gets charged a 1%-2% fee from VISA and Mastercard (who dominate 90%+ of the credit/debit industry), plus another 2%-4% fee for the payment processing console.. So now that $9.25 becomes $8.80, if not less (if there is a processing fee charged to me as the consumer.

Of course, that owner also paid tax on the goods they provide, all the way along the supply chain to the very raw materials used in the initial production, on the properties and land where that production took place. Also, transaction fees are assessed throughout the purchase-selling cycles of the lifetime of the production process. These amounts are beyond my ability to calculate specifically here, but the key is that these are addition funnels for a portion of what is entailed in a typical $10 purchase.

Then, that merchant is required to pay both federal and state taxes, another 40%. So now that $8.80 becomes $5.28, more or less. So literally nearly half of every dollar that we spend–nearly 2/3 of what we earn, goes straight to government coffers, and to big finance.

Magnify this by yearly earnings of $7.6+Trillion in 2025, with $2.1Trillion in spending, and you can start to comprehend the incomprehensible amount of money that we work so hard for which is being taken right off our family’s dinner tables.

And where does the money go? I’ll let you answer and save that for another day.

Is this freedom? Is this progress? Is this the pinnacle of good government and economics? I think the answer is obvious.

Truth2Power!