Now see this in Indian context, the story is same here; every other guy in this country would curse government for the corruption and tell you how "a rupee collected in taxes is always a rupee wasted." But the picture isn't always as bad as has been portrayed. We always crib about the potholes and the bad roads and how we could live a better life if we were born in US of A or some other western country, but we forget that no meal is a free meal. So, next time you see a stretch of good blacktop tarmac, be thankful to the government and don't forget to pay your taxes.

Sunil bhai i feel like here in india things much much tilted to the favour of rich than for a commoner the lifestyle strategy of a common man has not seemed to be influenced whereas in US its not so

Imo the situation in india is a bit different . we crib because our tax money is not utilized efficiently . only the corrupt bureaucrats , politico , contractors and middlemen seem to gain . somehow the fund flow from top to bottom level of society is very ineffective . accountability here is not there and a good recent example being the cwg games development in delhi .

"a rupee collected in taxes is always a rupee wasted."

I agree that the image that we have for the government is much worse than they actually are. But when you actually some second nephews of politicians or IAS officers roaming on roads with Red Light on top of their cars and a BodyGuards with guns following them you really feel rebelious.

Every time I see the Tax Deducted column in my Salary Slip, I really feel angry. I sometimes even thing of raging a 'Non Tay Payment Movement' against the government so that they can realise the value of our hard earned money.

But still I feel this is not the only problem. This is just one of the problems. In the rest of the problems, many of them we are responsible for.

I will qoute Rang De Basanti's Dialogue.

No country is perfect. Every country needs to be made Perfect.

I think till the time common, educated, honest people of this country dont start running this country these problems will be there. If we should do something, than it should not be to complain, it should be to Act in our own small ways. If everybody starts acting in this direction in their own small ways, the collective result be Significant and that would hopefully change things for the country.

we should not forget !!!

we always blame our political leaders their work and rupee taxed is wasted ? i m sorry to tell u guys that is not the case. our political leaders might be currupt they might not working efficiently but there is still a faith and democracy maitain in the country, where every 50 km language changes, more that 25 official languages, 100s of religins 1000s of way of lifes. the country with the oldest living civilization and yet we have "Adivasi" at the center of India how don't even realized wat is India and in wat country they live ?
to maintain harmoney and make all these thing work we have to search our past, our way of life back only 50 years was dangerouly diffrent than today ! princly state lost there status only back 30 yr. the country which is the largest democracy in world need efficient politicieans and they are good in the business wat they do.
why we forget every polotical party need money to thier day to day activity and if we belive democracy ( yea that we do for last 60 yr) we have to pay for it.
we made mistake comparing our country with developed western countries. they (westerns) have lost the culture they belong only the thing which are mixed and very popular are maintain and carry forward. Apache tribe is no more in America, even if they are present they lost thier way of life. social structure so poor. but in India still pongal, durga devi pooja, puri rath yatra and many more we are doing thin for more that 500yr some rituals related with Naga sadhu's are phalic in nature and been practiced more that 1000yr.
To maitain country like this in one Nation required guts and our politician are doing that very effectively. when Rosen Sane say that " we are the reliable and strategic partners with the western country" think who he is representing ? when third world countries look for help, and our forigne and commers minister say that we will represent third and we are commited for the development of peoples and only trade, think for that man ?
our politician might be in-effective, un-educated, having 14 chillderns, can't right a speach and currupt, but those are representing us . and that is how democracy works.
I think curruption is not a political problem it is a personal problem ? when we start to think that i will not bribe a trafic police no matter wat even if i have to go to cort or my licence get canceled ! ( batter u bribe him, u save u r time, u contribute money to gov officer, then u minimised the long process of getting to court and then, explain u r not guilty, then a jurry will make dicision and he spent time to know u r case, though he is already dealing with cases like murders, and land, then pay fine ?) now tell me simple way is to pay bribe and that is Rs 100 for any rule braking other wise Rs 1000/- is for not carry u r licence and PUC certificat ! tell me guys what is efficiency ?
still want to know more, this country runs the 'Sarvashiksha Abhiya' gurranty of education till the age of 14, (no other country can do it), this country has largest numbers of primary teachers in the world ? and they are working at Rs 1200/- for a month ? (we might spend that amount for the saturday night party) and we produce more graduates per year than entire population of Ausstrelia. wat efficiency u r talking about dear.
In this country 27 million people sleep without food so that we can have nuclear capabilities, other wise that money could have spend on their education and developement. and i can mention many more cases of magical management of this county that is not possible without our currupt poilitican ?

This news has been prevailing for nearly an year now, especially America's crumbling road infrastructure. But resorting to power cuts Gosh! Now Yedyurappa will say even in US people don't get 24hr power supply

This is what happens when countries are sought to run like companies. Bottomline driven, Quarter Se Quarter Tak (QSQT) and greed mentatlity.Goverments all over are obsessed with reducing fiscal defecit, with the same sense of urgency as a corporate would to reduce losses. While nobody argues against the logic of it, it need not be dealt with the same urgency as a corporate would.

Once the economy recovers and stimuls spending by the government withdrawn, offering utility services should be easy for US Government. That assuming ofcourse, the Corporate lobby doesn't get successful in getting the government out of whatever little it does in business.

As an American, im kinda sad right now that my country is going through such a tough time, but i think this article is mostly referring to roads in rural towns and city (that picture is taken from North Dakota...a state that has less than a million people total residing there). I mean its the natural cycle of the economy as well. A lot of people, both in India, and in the rest of the world, dont understand how acerbic and how divided the American political spectrum has become in recent years. This is what i tell people when i argue with them; people dont read up on facts and issues before they start arguing their position. I would suggest people read the history and see how political the taxes issue has become. A lot of people just dont get it about taxes...unfortunetly...and how they are neccessary for the upkeep of the nation. The Republicans have done a great job of co-opting the message on taxes, the economy, how government should be and driving it home to people..unfortunetly, changing perceptions takes a long time.

To be fair, most of the roads that i drove on in Texas were actually quite nice and seemed new..at least to me. Yeah, a lot of the roads in CA seem the same to me as they did years ago, but Caltrans is trying to do an alright job. They just built a new highway interchange by my house a year back, so its not all going downhill. Things will pick back up...eventually. What happened during Bush's time was really bad...and we need some time to clean up this mess..it cant be done overnight, and certainly not in 1 or 2 years.

@rahulingle1: I dont buy your argument about the West losing culture. The USA is home to more cultures than anywhere else in the world. Where else can you go down the street and find a Chinatown, Viet Town, Little India, Little Korea, Little Armenia, etc, etc..all in the same street, next to each other...and all of those communities getting along. Yes, Native Americans have been sort of forgotten, and i agree that is wrong, but their heritage has been richly preserved for all of us to see, learn about and explore. India hasnt really taken in people of other cultures or regions as much as maybe other countries in Asia have, like Singapore, Malaysia, the Mid East, etc. I agree that India is amazing and that it is the oldest living civilization, but why is that we always put our region or our state before India Herself? Each State fights over stupid, trivial issues and makes hay out of it..instead of pledging to work out their differences in the right way. The North-South-East-West divide in India is horrible and is the cause of many problems. For god sakes our politicians act like stupid, spoiled children in the Parliment. Instead of doing whats good for India, they just want to act like stupid babies and fatten their pockets. India needs good leadership, and its sad that young people arent taking a more active role in government and politics. Change will come when the good, decent people in India stand up and kick all these losers out from office.

Comparing India & USA is like comparing bank robbery versus pick pocketing. If USA is robbing from world, India is robbing from its own people. The former is progressive, the latter is destructive. This is an interesting topic, let me read the links at leisure & post more comments.

i think you are right about "India robbing from its own people". You see it every day...red tapism, shady government practices, how people evade income tax, the discovery that billions of rupees are sitting in Swiss bank accounts, our VERY inept politicians (save for a few..like PM Singh and Rahul Gandhi), etc, etc.

Back after reading completely

Having gone through the entire posts, here're my thoughts...

This point was reached because of stupid Govt's policy on WAR!!! In the 60's it was cold war with Russia, in the 70's Vietnam war, in the 90's Gulf war & in the 2000's the Iraq war. Needless to say who supported the Afghans against Russia & where did all these funds come from? Did all the private players approach the Govt & asked them to wage war right from Reagon to Obama? Even if they did, why didn't the stupid Govt think before they acted? Why do republicans always find enjoyment with war?

The only peaceful period was during 94-02 during Clinton's period where the war was not being waged & infact, Clinton's period saw the lowest unemployment rate ever since 1900!!!

Not every other guy, everyone; why show a partiality in collecting taxes between working class & the employer class? Why isn't the pending taxes being collected from the own favourite IOC who's topping the country's largest tax defaultee? While I don't send my returns, some red tape guy sends out a computer generated (printed in dot matrix printer) letter to me asking to explain. Why?

Personally I feel Govt in India is threatening tax with people who're employed & begging for tax with companies.

Before proceeding with next section - My sincere apologies to Rahul, pls don't take it as offence against you, but this is completely against the view that is presented here.

Democracy!!! My foot!!!
Its high time we stop using this word Democracy & start using Dictatorship, just that the dictator is not as harsh as Hitler. Democracy is in heights in this country with people taking laws in their own hands.

Every single paisa of tax that we pay is going to MLA's & MP's in form of telehone bill, car expense, monthly chores, allowance, salary & what not? And for their personal income, they use bribe as tool. What's big dfference between a beggar? Probably the amount of income & lifestyle. If Democracy says for the people & by the people, which candidate wins without false votes?

The freebies are to be stopped immediately without even any notice. That is one horrible stuff & a perfect example of money being waste. Instead give work to people, make them understand that you need to work to make money & that's the way America has grown. Why only copy McD, KFC, HD & Ford from America. That makes me to add another point on RedApple, USA is a home for all cultures, but people loose their roots. But this is not different from India. When people in India can copy American lifestyle & fancy speaking English, why not copy their...
1. Respect to Time. Why do we want to follow Indian Stretchable Time? Over & above pride in coming late!!!
2. Say simple things as Sorry & Thanks even to family members like a typical American
3. Why not do our own stuff such as washing clothes, gardening, lawn mowing & expect someone else to do the work?
4. Last but not the least, why not stand up against your manager & say that you can work only for 8 hours & not more than that? Once a staff asked to approach the labour department in the county when he was asked to stay at office to work extra hours

How old are your Rahul? What's the democracy have you seen? Have you been to any Govt hospital for treatment? Have you been to any RT office? Or atleast have you been to ration shop? Pls try to get one birth or death certificate without paying bribe & hats off to you. Try talking against one political leader in this country & you'll know what democracy means.

No point telling what was there in the past & fretting it in the present; all these things have long gone.

Ok, pls start donating half your salary to one of the political party every month because you believe in their leadership, because you believe in democracy, because you believe they work effeciently; if you're not working now, atleast do that when you start earning.

Guts??? ROTFLMAO!!! Do you even know the meaning of the word guts? All they need is money to play politics & they've to loose not only guts, but become spineless. If they need guts they don't need money as you told earlier.

What do you think? Everyone's personal problem constitute country's problem? C'mon, corruption is not personal problem anymore dude; its the entire nation's problem. Your personal problem has been prioritized than mine because you paid him extra to do the work for which he's being paid by the Govt through yours & my tax money.

@Rahul - I personally feel its all natural cycles of ups & downs for any country, or for that matter ups & downs of life too; not alone USA, the world's second largest economy is also experiencing this in another form for over 13 years now. Once the west was struggling hard, people over there didn't know what to do when the winter strikes, when there were no A/C & concretes. People couldn't even cultivate food over the frozen winters which made them invade, colonize.

It was during those times, India, ranging from present Bhutan & Burma all way upto middle east, was shining in riches & people were afraid of self concious. With constant invasions, laws & ofcourse with time, things have changed; trust me, the winds of riches are now blowing towards the east from west. It is upto us whether we need to sail in the wind or fight among ourselves & waste the wind.

Reg USA, its now paying for what it did over several decade now. Being one of the world's largest consumer, they did nothing other than waging war. Like RedApple says, these unpaved roads must be in Dakota or Wisconsin, USA cannot afford to mess up with their road system now as they have invested the least in public transports.

US foreign policy is very complex, and well...there was nothing we could have done to stop the Cold War from happening. The USA and the the Soviet Union were the 2 major powers to emerge from WWII. Unfortunetly, the Soviets wanted everyone to be Communist and well, we had to stop it. BTW, for a lot of the Cold War, the Democrats were in power too . Would India have liked to been under Soviet domination or control? I dont think so...but India's socialism sucked .

The US wasnt "obessesed with war" so much as trying to stop the spread of Communism..and well, the Soviet Union did eventually collapse, right? Sometimes that cause us to do stupid things (like what eventually happened with Vietnam), but at that time we were in a "damned if you do, damned if you dont situation". Anyone would have supported the actions that we took, but unfortunetly Vietnam spiraled out of control.

There was one significant war (The Kosovo conflict) during Clinton's time though...but that was sort of like a police action.

You know America did do other stuff than "War" at that time. Many significant inventions (the modern computer for one, the cell phone, etc) came from America at that time. We put a man on the moon...and developed the first reusable Space Shuttle. So many developments in technology, medicine, agriculture, etc, etc took place during the cold war...

I think India can learn from the good parts of America; respect for others, working hard for your money, not trying to game the system all the time, not expecting a free lunch, etc, etc.

Mods - Apologize for penning down my thoughts if they sound harsh. Pls feel free to delete my post; I'm penning them down assuming I'm free to express my thoughts in this forum.

Nothing could be done? Well why did US fund the Afghans? Regan could've stopped it? Why did CIA adopt people & train them? It it because they could ram the flight into WTC? USSR attacked Afghanistan directly, but what did US do? Why did they supply ammunation to Afghans? Why wasn't it sorted out through UN? Every country has undergone this kind of stuff with India being no exception.

Well, we're a mix of communist, socialist, democractic ruled by capitalism

Lol; US wan't obsessed with war?

World War I - 1917 - 1918
World War II - 1939–1945
Cold War - 1945 - 1991 (US stopped only after USSR collapsed)
Korean War - 1950–1953
Vietnam War - 1955 - 1975
Gulf War - 1990 - 1991
War on Terrorism (Afghanistan) - 2001 - present
Iraq War - 2003 - present

Now compare that with India
1947/48 - Indo Pak
1962 - Indo China
1965 - Indo Pak
1971 - Indo Pak
200's - Indo Pak

Source - Military history of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Add to the spiraling list Korea, Iraq & Gulf countries.

If you call that incident as war, then what should we call the other wars waged by US from 60's onwards?

Very true; one more point to add from my end, the invention of Little Boy & Fat man; No, I'm not talking about Fat Boy here

I think you seriously got offended my friend; don't need to substantiate the points with me, because I love US too; if I weren't married, I would've been settled in US by now.

Rightly said; even US can learn about few things from India. I guess its all learning from other's mistakes...
1. How teen age girls not getting pregnant
2. Ladies learn how not to get divorced immediately after marriage & learn to respect mutually
3. Learn how to live with old aged parents
4. Most importantly eat less & how not to waste food
5. Consume what is necessary & burn less fuel
6. Lessons on gun culture & how not to allow children bring gun to school

@RedApple - Pls don't get offended my friend, as I don't intend to continue on this topic anymore; every country has its own pros & cons; only the magnitute differs. If India has lots of freedom, it has high corruption; though US has high quality of life, the life is very stressful in US. May be smaller countries such as Luxembourgh, Singapore or Newzeland are better than both of us; who knows what those countries are undergoing unless we find out?

no im not offended, but i think you have a very different view on what happened during the 1900s...and it sort of denies the realities at that time.

First off, WWI...that was a strictly European thing. The US didnt even get involved till the last couple of years due to the German U-boat attacks on our merchant fleet. WWII...come on, we didnt get directly involved till Dec 7, 1941. But yeah, we did have the lend-lease program going on...which helped turned the tide. In the end, i firmly believe that the US effort contributed to the Allies winning the war. BTW, India was also involved in all these wars as a part of the British Empire .

The Cold War was inevitable...and it was the sort of thing that couldnt have really been solved by the UN because both sides didnt wanna play nice. So i mean, the US and the Soviets, being the two biggest powers at the time...were gonna get dragged into things, like it or not. Two competing systems at that time; Capitalism/Democracy vs. Communism...everyone had to pick sides pretty much. This same premise applies to Korea (invasion was by the North and the war was technically a UN action), Vietnam, etc, etc. BTW in Vietnam, it wasnt us that was there first...the French were there..we kinda picked up their contract, so to speak.

As for Afghanistan, you really want to go back to Nuclear brinkmanship again? We had that with the the Cuban Missile Crisis...i dont think the US wanted to go down that road again because there was no other way the Soviets would leave Afghanistan short of threatening Nuclear War. Unfortunetly, we lost control of the jihadists in Afghanistan (but people say they were really never under anyone's control).

I think we can both agree that both of our countries have problems...but who will fix them??