Why taxes are good.

[pecunium]

The writer is Canadian, and I know she's going to get lots of grief, because she's going against the tropes the Right has been beating the rest of the world with for the past... well ever since the idea of taxes were codified.

The fact is, we need taxes. Americans pay not enough in taxes. We also, in exchange for that, get a lot less. Our bridges are falling down, we don't have health care (not as a nation. Some of us do as individuals, but it's not guaranteed, and it's at the whim of someone trying to make a profit... it's not quite the same), our roads are decrepit.

Think of all the things we demand of gov't; clean water, safe cars, oversight of employers, enforcement of contracts (those touchstones of the Libertarian Mythos... the sacred contract; which binds all and prevents gov't... never mind that the courts and the police are how we make those contracts work), the enforcement of laws, the licensing of doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, etc.

The Gov't inspects meat, fish, milk, drugs, cars. It sets minimum standards for safety in the workplace. We have safe power and the means to deliver to everyone because of Gov't.

Without giving money to the Gov't, there is no gov't. Fee for services (the oft touted alternative to apportioning the burden to everyone, and taking more from those who can better afford it; by means of progressive tax structures) isn't a lack of taxes, it's just a regressive way of seeing to it only the rich get to really partake of the good parts of gov't, while seeing to it the less pleasant parts are borne by all.

In any case, Heather Mallick hits the nail on the head: Cake or Death

...taxes are great. (Darling editor, what follows isn’t entirely new; I’ve been saying it for decades, but it’s my book.) I may be alone in this opinion but hear me out, please. I’m a fan of civilization, and taxes enable civilization. To put it another way, taxes grease the skids of living well.

Other people say loudly, endlessly, tediously that they hate taxes. They haven’t considered the alternative, so let’s embarrass them by doing that. They’d prefer to live in sod houses and spend their days combining a drop of oxygen and two drops of hydrogen so they can have homemade water rather than have it piped to their homes by tax-supported civilization. Fine, if it keeps them occupied and far away from me.

But I do not like to see civilized Canadians falling for sodbuster notions.

(h/t to commodorified)

Comments

[bodandra.livejournal.com]

I dated a man in college who as from Norway.
He was going to OK State because it was so much less expensive than going to a University in Europe.
He said that once he gets his degree he will go back home for a job that paid for him at this University.

He also told me that in Norway the taxes are 50% of earnings. The taxes pay for health care, everything.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

He was going to OK State because it was so much less expensive than going to a University in Europe.

Not sure how that works out since many Universities in Europe are free, and even in the UK now the maximum bill is about $15000 for three years.

[bodandra.livejournal.com]

This was in 1988-89.

All I know was what he told me.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

At which point the UK was free. Bizarre.

Republican teenagerdom

[libertango.livejournal.com]

Here is my theory (which is mine) -- Republicans are the party for teenagers of all ages.

You know the kind of teenager who believes that adults are lying to them when the adults talk about responsibilities? You know, the kind who thinks that rent, and groceries, and cars, and gasoline, all come from some kind of magical adult fairy dust, and as soon as you're an adult, you're entitled to your share?

Well, Republicans think the same thing about government. They believe government has a similar kind of magical fairy dust that allows it to be able to do anything it wants -- without actually raising the cash (which is all taxes are).

They want all the benefits of government. They just don't want to pay for those benefits. They don't believe in the idea that you get what you pay for. And, like the line goes from Pulp Fiction, "They got a word for 'em, they're called bums."

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yup, Mallick has it right, I think -- taxes = civilization. Or maybe vice-versa; at the very least, taxes are a necessary part of being civilized. And so is the concept of scrupulous oversight of the expenditure of tax money.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

Americans pay not enough in taxes.

It always fills me with great amusement whenever I hear a Republican decry the ghastly tax burden that crushes my fellow Americans.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I rather shocked my bank manager by refusing to listen to her list of tax dodging methods.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Yes, many people -- it's especially common in the U.S., I think -- have a strong disliking for being required to do anything (or for being prohibited from doing anything), and will expect to be able to find some dodge to avoid it insofar as possible. I seem not to have much patience with the "Moral Principles" based on greed and egocentrism, even though, in practice, I've been known to cut a few corners.

[niamh-sage.livejournal.com]

I consider the taxes that I pay to be my contribution to helping things run smoothly, so I've never really had a problem with them. The only thing that jacks me off is when I see funding being cut (yet again) from health and education and I wonder what the govt is spending the money on instead. Oh and also the one time when the WA govt levied an additional $50 car registration fee on all drivers to cover the cost of a stupid and scandalous mistake it made, and then never lifted the fee when the debt was repaid. Grrrrr.

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

Americans like to forget that the Revolution started out as a tax revolt. It wasn't "no taxation without representation" until the revolt was hijacked by political radicals (fortunately for the US, a rather strange and remarkably benign set of radicals, but radicals nevertheless); before then it was "don't tax us".

Ever since, the concept of "taxation" has been anathema I suspect in part because of the revolutionary association between taxation and Teh Ebil Kings Wot Are Ebil in your grade-school history classes.

-- Steve's saying this as an outsider himself, so his perspective may be off a bit; but it does seem to fit somewhat.

[elf]

A lot of "anti-tax" people seem to forget that taxes don't just pay for Health Care For Stupid Poor People; they pay for roads, firefighters, public schools (so that, presumably, there will be less Stupid Poor People in the future), cops, that military that they're often fond of, and a legal system that means females don't have to walk around in teams with flensing knives to avoid being raped.

I'm fond of roads and firefighters. I like buildings that don't collapse or shatter during earthquakes, which may-or-may-not be supported by tax grants, but certainly require tax money to figure out what those standards need to be.

I'll grant that the lack of teams of well-armed other females to walk around with is a debatable value, and might be useful in some areas even with taxes.