A stealth attack on Americans fortunes
The economic decline is putting pressure on the wealth of Americans in several conspicuously and direct ways. Rising unemployment puts some people directly out of income. For those with jobs, their income is often reduced through less workable hours, lower commissions, or cuts in benefits, depending upon the type of job. Americans who own homes have their net worth shrunk with lower home values. The stock market crash has deteriorated the values of retirement funds and financial holding.
At the same time, Americans are bracing for an across-the-board looming tax increase, from federal income tax increases, property tax rate hikes, and jumps in the amounts of fees government collects for services and permits. Some of the most damaging financial affects of the receission could come from drains on income that are initially less apparent.
Inflation is an obvious potential culprit, but experts debate whether it is a serious threat, and it has been been discussed enough not to be a big surprise for most informaed people.
However, other “hidden” and stealth taxes are already finding their way into the financial system, and eating away at 
the wealth of Americans today. As more people are unable to pay for their fair share of services provided to them, others are burdened with the leftover bills, often without their direct knowledge. For example, the health insurance premiums you and your employer paid last year for family coverage included a $1,017 “hidden tax” to cover care for the uninsured. The or subsidy, is a long-standing phenomenon that happens because hospitals and doctors treat people without insurance who often cannot afford to pay the bill. Medical providers, in order to survive, find they need to shift the cost of uncompensated care to private insurance. Medicare and Medicaid also cause cost-shifting to private insurance by paying what many medical providers consider inadequate reimbursement, and the uninsured often postpone care for financial reasons until it’s more urgent and costly, which fuels the hidden tax.
As municipalities deal with less revenue, they not only raise taxes, but cut services. I have written about the problems which citizens might face when municipal services are cut, but increased costs will result as well. Atlanta homeowners could pay as much 10 percent more for their insurance because the city has cut staffing and training for the fire 
department, resulting in their rating being dropped. Insurance companies use the protection classification rating system to determine risk for properties within a district, and Atlanta dropped from 2 to 4 on a scale of 10 with 1 being the best rating. The classification considers everything from the number of firefighters a government has to the location of its fire hydrants. Georgia Insurance and Fire Safety Commissioner John Oxendine warned that the criteria in Atlanta have been affected by budget cuts. “They are quite deficient,” he said.
In one Florida town, the government is considering outsourcing some of its official services to an outside firm. Commissioners decided to contract with an outside firm to run its zoning department, and fire 40 city workers. One observer noted that in the long run, outsourcing will add expense to the city budget, because city employees usually make 20%-30% less than the similar jobs in private sector. At the same time, the city is not allowed to make a profit, by law, while the private contractor is, with tax payers footing the bill. The commenter went to to summarize the process: ” Get this, you folks, every city job outsourced to a private company Will COST MORE to the tax payer as the service they provide will be expected to generate them PROFIT, something city employees, already underpaid, do not care about. A while after this B&Z takeover, you will either be begging the city to take the B&Z back or screaming foul for the B&Z inspectors will get ruder and fines – steeper.”
At the state level, 14 states have unemployment accounts which are empty. As more people are laid off, the accounts which states use to pay unemployment benefits have run dry. At least 18 more states are in danger of exhausting their 
unemployment insurance trust funds. Now, states with bankrupt trust funds will have to increase taxes or cut unemployment benefits at the worst possible time — during a recession. Federal loans will ensure that states can keep mailing out benefit checks. But the loans pass costs along to federal taxpayers, including people who live in states where unemployment insurance is sufficiently funded.
The government budget deficits are having a double-whammy affect on homeowners whose property values have dropped. With a lower value, many property owners expected their tax bills to go down. Many counties are raising the tax mill rates to make up the difference, resulting in the same or even higher tax bill. In Broward County Florida, residents are facing both service cuts and a tax increase. Cuts include closing smaller libraries, shutting down regional parks two days a week and reductions in social services to the poor and elderly. The Sheriff’s Office has offered to lay off 177 employees, end a program that assigns cops to patrol school grounds and close the old stockade jail. A 13 percent hike in tax rates would allow the county to collect as much in taxes as it did before property values tumbled last year.
