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Happy Tax Day! (Warning: Long-Winded)

2008-04-15 19:23:30

I always get a kick out of all the people (usually self-identified as "Conservatives" or "Libertarians") who bitch about paying taxes. For instance, a guy I used to work with sent me an e-mail with a poem starting:

Tax his land, tax his wage,
Tax his bed in which he lays.
Tax his tractor, tax his mule,
Teach him taxes is the rule.

By the way, if you've never gotten a right-wing viral e-mail, go immediately to the "My Right-Wing Dad" web site and bask in "teh stoopid".

Back to the matter at hand... taxes. Taxes are the dues we pay to live in a civil society. I pay to have decent roads, potable (and in the NY metro area, delicious) tap water, police and judicial services- in other words, the bedrock on which a civilized society can be constructed. Radio host, author, and all-around Renaissance Man Thom Hartmann uses the candy bar analogy as a rebuttal to "It's your money!" Conservatives: If you walk into a convenience store with a dollar in your pocket, take a one-dollar candy bar off the shelf, and take a bite out of it, then the dollar in your pocket is no longer yours, but belongs in the till of the store. You drive on public roads, your food and medicine are deemed safe by public officials, if you're lucky you have a good public library (the one I am currently sitting in is beautiful, and they seem to hire a lot of really, really good-looking young ladies)... in other words, you've bitten the candy bar.
The problem is that almost thirty years of right-wing anti-tax stupidity has debased our sense of civic duty. Ronald Reagan famously said, "The nine scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'". The culmination of this attitude is on vivid display here in Dubya's Tax-Cut America, with it's breached levees, fallen bridges, and rapid meltdown of unregulated financial industries. The crumbling infrastructure is not a sign of Bush's failure, but of his success. He's a guy who never believed that government could work, and he's proved his premise by governing incompetently. Just the fact that he fired government technocrats and stacked crucial federal agencies with cronies, lackeys, and an alarming number of graduates from Jerry Falwell's Liberty University speaks to his contempt of competent government. Hopefully, a larger "Liberal" presence in Congress come November can lead to a tax policy drafted by grown-ups.

Lastly, when you pay taxes to allow the government "of, by, and for the people" to deliver services, you are a citizen. If you starve government for funds, and allow private entities to take over roles traditionally played by government, you are merely a customer. Citizen or customer, which would you rather be?

Happy Tax Day!