Food for Thought

American's are rabidly anti-tax. Their revolution was built on hatred of a tea tax. It is in their blood. But they fail to recognize that tax is "the price of civilization". Here's a bit from an article by Jonathan Cohn in The National Review that makes the argument for paying taxes:

Happy Tax Day. And I mean that sincerely. I don’t like parting with my money any more than you do. But I like what my tax dollars buy. Public schools. Safe food and consumer products. National security. The post office. Guaranteed income and health insurance for my aging parents, plus (soon) a guarantee of health insurance for my immediate family.

I benefit directly from all of these programs. And I benefit indirectly from the stability they provide. Capitalism and democracy could not survive without a vibrant, activist government. Such a government costs money to run.

Which is not to say government cannot be wasteful or that every tax dollar is well spent. Very clearly that is not the case. When I go to the supermarket, I seek low prices and high quality. And I begrudge nobody’s insistence that taxpayers show the same vigilance. But while we need to insist on a better bargain from the government, particularly when it comes to its management of our bloated health care system, we cannot expect to pay less overall without receiving a lot less in return.

That’s what the analysis of House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget has shown. If we want to reduce government spending and, by the way, reduce taxes as a share of our collective income, we’ll have to scale back dramatically on the income security we provide our citizens. The Congressional Budget Office thinks Ryan's plan would leave the typical retiree responsible for two-thirds of his or her medical expenses. That would be a radical change, a return to a world we've not seen since the early 1960s.

There's more. Go read the whole article.

You get what you pay for. The rabid right that wants to pay nothing will get a "nothing government". Blood in the streets, gangs gone wild, private armies, the rich secure in gated communities while cities turn into the apocalyptic playground that Hollywood films are enamoured with. Sadly, the socially conservative Americans who claim to love "family values" have been sold a pig in a poke by the rabid right. They have been sold an idea that you have have a free lunch: low tax light-weight government while mom & apple pie remain cozy and safe. You can't. The 2008 meltdown shows you what you get when you let the criminals of Wall Street run free. Mexico shows you what you get when you let the drug gangs run free.

I'm happy living in Canada where we pay more in taxes in order to get a better society. Sadly, we have a Conservative party filled with people who should immigrate to the US so they can "enjoy" the slide into anarchy which the rabid right is delivering to the American people. Our right wing nuts look like wide-eyed liberals to the rabid right in the US. But the gravitational pull of the US keeps pulling Canada into the abyss. So... hurry up US. Implode! That will disarm the right wing nuts in Canada and give us back our country.