What If?

 

 What if?  Lets say that you make $20 per hour, for a 40 hour work week, that's $800 per week.  You get paid once a week.  You are married with one child.  You live in Minnesota.  You are claiming married with 2 exemptions.  Lets say that you have no pretax exemptions (retirement, health savings, etc.).  On an average paycheck, EVERY WEEK, you pay in $139.20 to the government. ($50 to the IRS, $28 to MN Revenue, $49.60 to Social Security, and $11.60 to Medicare).  What would happen if you had to actually write out a check EVERY WEEK for that $139.20?  Would you be more cognizant of the amount of taxes that you pay if you had to pay it in yourself?  Would everyone else be more conscious of it?
By the way, in this scenerio, your $800 paycheck has now been changed to $660.80 and multiply this by 52 weeks in a year and your $41,600 salary has changed into $34,361.60.
Take your last paycheck and really look at it.  How much are you paying?  I know you don't write out a check each week (unless you are self-employed), but take a couple minutes, on each payday and look at it, REALLY LOOK AT IT!