Paying Taxes is Unpatriotic?

Paying taxes is unpatriotic, or so we have been told by the Republican Vice-presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. Thence comes forth Senator Obama, who chatted with "Joe the Plumber" while campaigning in Ohio. I'm bothered that the only 3-second sound bite from their 5-minute discussion was "share the wealth". That in itself should tell you there is more to the story. But now she calls Senator Obama a socialist. Pretty harsh, if you ask me, but this is sound-bite politics.

OK, so let's discuss taxes. Taxes have been here since the ancient Babylonians (present-day Iraq) first started farming and writing. Tax codes have been both fair and decidedly unfair over the course of history. And who decides what is fair and what is not? Generally that task is taken by those either assessing the tax or those paying the tax, and it should be easy to determine who is who. Needless to say, nobody likes paying them. Steve, a former co-worker of mine, said it best. "I don't mind paying my fair share of taxes, but not one penny more". Does that make Steve unpatriotic?

What is patriotism? There will certainly be a great many definitions, but they all circulate around the central theme of putting the good of one's country at the fore. And how do we do that? We support our troops, of course. Everyone does. For one political party to suggest that the other political party doesn't "Support our Troops" is to suggest that only families of one political party send brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, mothers and fathers to war. Nonsense. So let's set down in stone that everyone in America supports the troops and that in this definition, everyone in America is patriotic. To say otherwise would be silly.

Going forward, then, how else does one show support for our country? By taking part in the political process and exercising our right - nay, obligation - to vote. That means not just once every 4 years, but also in the local and state elections. Few of us show that level of support in either of the major political parties. Shame on us.

Another mode for us to show our support is monetarily. Few of us write checks to the US Treasury as willingly as we do to the American Red Cross or Catholic Relief Services to aid those in earthquakes or floods. As a people, Americans are very generous to charities. The government, however, has extortive power to acquire its pound of flesh from us. We pay our taxes or they take it from us. Most live in fear of an audit from the IRS, and with good reason. But is that sufficient to refer to paying taxes as unpatriotic? I think not.

Many to whom I speak (and email) make derisive references to generations of welfare mothers and the chronically unemployed who bilk the system. Their line is always "I'd rather spend my money than have the government give it to some loser to spend" or something of that nature. But what of the other things to which our tax money goes? Local taxes tend to go heavily into education - the local school district. If people think education is expensive, wait until they see the bill for illiteracy. Roads, police, fire departments, are all funded through local taxes. Sewer and water projects are all funded through local taxes. When a local constituency has good representation in Congress, there may be some federal funds as well (isn't that pork? Only when someone else's district gets it) so as to lessen the tax burden on property tax. Seems to me that there is some good coming out of paying taxes.

Now, on to the IRS. Yes, they can be exceptionally nasty when put to the test. They have the full force of the US government to coerce payment. But THAT money goes to the FDA for safe food and drugs, the FHA for low-income housing, the NTSA for safe air travel, the DOT for interstate highways (and the commerce that they support), and the military.

If you've been following closely, you may start to see a paradox. Governor Palin's oldest son has been deployed to Iraq. Governor Palin, as well as Senator McCain (a very honorable veteran) are without a doubt supportive of our troops, which is patriotic as defined at the top of this article. But how can we support them, beyond yellow ribbon magnets on the back of SUVs? Maybe by sending money to the very entity for which they are fighting. In other words, if we pay our fair share of taxes, we are buying body armor for Track Palin. How can we go wrong here?

Now, I suppose we could up the ante on everyone to get this darned deficit down to a manageable level. We could do that by charging every man, woman, and child in this great country a bill on the order of $33,000 (that's $10 trillion divided by 300 million people). I have a family of 6 and I cannot cough up my $198,000 share of that. But there is a segment of society that has the resources to pay at least their fair share of that bill. That would be the very wealthy. If you read the Sunday papers, the October 12 2008 Parade Magazine had a short graphic telling about the McCain and Obama tax plans. According to the Obama plan, you would have to take home about a million dollars a year taxable income (that's about $20,000 per week) in order to pay your $33,000 share of the federal deficit. However, if you subscribe to McCain's tax solution, someone who makes $1 million dollars a year would actually SAVE about $20,000 on their taxes. These people who make $20,000 a week would get one week's free pay based McCain's retention of the Bush Tax Plan. I don't know about you, but it seems terribly unpatriotic to me that one political should continue to push our (OUR) deficit higher and higher when the wealthy have the resources to at least cover their own portion.

Our deficit is already smothering our economy. We've seen it double in 8 years. That's more debt under the philosophy of trickle-down economics (which Reagan proved unworkable) than the entire country has racked up since its birth over 200 years ago. We owe our financial souls to the Chinese because we spend beyond our means. And we're now told we are unpatriotic for paying taxes? Who are they trying to fool? Everyone, apparently.