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I posted this in reply to another thread on another board, but thought, what the hell....
It's a rant that has a couple of years on it, but with the old Republican saw of "Democrats increase yer taxes!!!" being dusted off just in time for the upcoming political season, I thought I'd trot it out for fun. Enjoy.
One of the many drawbacks to being an artist is that people automatically assume I am an across-the-board, Democratic Liberal. You know; one of those liberal elite, college-educated eggheads with no real world experience who wants to suck the life out of the rich and feed it to the undeserving poor simply because my ivory tower college professors told me so.
Well, in a word, no. You see, I'm a Republican wet dream. I grew up in a family of uneducated poor white trash. I started working at the tender age of 9 to literally help put food on the table by working in the gardens we used to raise our food. When I turned 14, I got an after-school job to help bring in real money to the family for luxuries like heat and lights. I learned, from my inequitably paid, single-working-mother who held down two jobs so we wouldn't have to go on welfare, a work ethic that would make a Calvinist weak-kneed with shame. I put myself through college with a minimum of student loans; choosing instead to work full-time while going to school. After years of intermittent work and school, so as to minimize the amount of loans I had to take out, I received my Masters Degree and have been fairly successful running and managing a very small art business. Occasionally working full-time in order to be a productive citizen and help pay the bills.
Given my life experience I've always understood the concept of: I work hard for my money, I've earned the right to keep it for myself. I shouldn't have to give it to people who don't give me something in return. And I shouldn't have to support people who won't work for themselves.
As I matured I came to realize that it is entirely natural for a 12-year-old to think that way. It's a phase of development that helps a tender ego set boundaries in order to survive the real world with it's basic lack of fairness and predatory users. However, for people who consider themselves adults, it is a puzzlingly shortsighted point of view.
Here are a couple of real world examples. I have a friend M. He is a Republican. He owns a couple of small struggling businesses. He has the requisite wife and two children. His children go to public schools which are paid for with tax dollars. I don't have children. I will never have children. Yet the spouse and I, along with the literally hundreds of childless adults we know, continue to pay our taxes to put his children through 24 total years of school; we pay for the teachers, the buildings, the nurses, the administrators, the support staff and the transportation. We pay for the testing, the special needs programs and the advanced courses implementation. And if they choose to go to a public University, we will support them through those years too.
M. drives a very large SUV, which he uses for a number of trips to his small business concerns every day; by himself. His children ride the buses to and from school. His wife drives to her job and on all her errands; by herself. He drives on the Interstates, he drives on the county roads, he pollutes the air and stresses the pavement along with all the other commuters. Me, on the other hand, I drive into town maybe twice a week to do errands. Spousal unit drives round-trip to work on a tiny country road in a fuel-efficient small truck 4 times a week. Because we have a house and land that need constant attention we tend to stay at home a lot. M. and his family use the roads and pollute the air much more than the spouse and I do and our tax dollars subsidize his families ability to do that. Our tax dollars subsidize him while he and his wife get to deduct their 2 dependents, their multiple business expenses and the interest from multiple loans off their yearly income tax.
Mature adults realize that in order for a family or a culture to survive sacrifices have to be made by each individual. I pay taxes so that M.'s children can go to school and while they're at it they can eat clean meat, breathe clean air and drink clean water. They can use the public library without paying for it. His family can have their volumes of mail delivered to their various businesses.
Yes, I benefit from those things too, but lets pretend for a minute, we were allowed to pay taxes only on the things we used directly so that we could keep the bulk of our hard earned money. Well, the first thing to go would be the entire military. Most of us don't use it. Recently all of our wars have been fought in other countries, for other countries. So I'm not sure about the direct benefit I'm getting from it. I don't have an army private who patrols my acreage at night to keep the raccoons away from the compost. I don't have their earth-moving machines out eradicating the kudzu in my fields. The next thing to probably collapse would be corporate welfare and small-farm subsidies, for much the same reasons.
Those things are necessary for businesses and economy to flourish, the Republicans argue. Things like welfare only support people who choose not to work and don't contribute anything to society. "Welfare supports lazy mothers and their illegitimate offspring." "Welfare supports the old and useless who can no longer contribute."
What they don't seem to realize is that we are not supporting welfare moms. We are supporting the children of welfare moms. The same way I'm supporting M'.s children. Government sponsored programs feed, clothe and maintain the children who are going to grow up and literally run the country. Not the political part. That, of course, is reserved for those in the lucky egg and sperm club; those born to wealth and power and influence. No, I'm talking about the people who go into factory jobs every day to generate income for the CEOs and for the national economy. I'm talking about the guy who's going to fix your Lexus or build your house. I'm talking about the people who literally make this country run.
What a great idea to under-feed and under-educate your future work force. That's brilliant long-term planning. And for what? To keep a few extra dollars in your pocket to buy a new boat? Well, if Bob the Builder is functionally retarded because he was underfed and under-educated how well do think that boat is going to hold up?
Do you want that new boat? Or maybe you want to be a good entrepreneur and reinvest those tax dollars in a new business? Think of all the taxes we spend on the prison system. Think of the billions we would save if would turn all those pot smokers loose. Unfortunately, in the end, it really, really isn't about taxes at all. Its about punishing those you think are wrong or frivolous or unworthy in some fundamental way.
Its like the divorced father who won't pay child support because he thinks the system is unfair. He loses sight of the fact that he's helping to raise the children he helped bring into this world. Children he is, in part, responsible for. He thinks, instead, he is supporting his lazy ex-wife, her partying, her clothes habit and her dalliances with young men. "Why should I pay for that lazy bitch?" he wonders. "It's my money. I work hard for it, I've earned the right to keep it for myself. I shouldn't have to give it to people who don't give me something in return. And I shouldn't have to support people who won't work for themselves." Sound familiar?
And that's when I realized: Republicans are the Deadbeat Dads of society. They benefit from having a cheap labor force, but don't want to provide even the most basic of necessities in order to feed, clothe or educate future generations of cheap labor.
Is our system of taxation perfect? No. And it never will be. But increasing short-term gain at the expense of long-term stability is always a fools game. And that, my friends, is how I learned to vaguely comprehend the Republican mind and embrace increased taxation.
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