taxing my patience (part 1 of 2)
I keep hearing Bush on the radio repeating how tax cuts are important for the economy and all the democrats want to do is raise taxes and take your money… so I thought I’d get a few things off my chest and clear up some facts. Taxes are not inherently evil. Taxes are the way that the government earns the money that it needs to perform the necessary services and functions required to keep ANY nation running. Taxes are like the nation’s salary essentially. The reason we have a government is to protect what rights and laws and such as we have in order to keep the country from falling into anarchy or being conquered and absorbed by another nation like a hungry amoeba. It sounds pretty simple right? In fact, it is that simple, but there’s a lot more that goes on with a government than just that, so let’s first take a look at what the government uses the money it makes for. Where do these tax dollars go?
Public Education. Schools around the country get money from the states to run their schools and produce new text books and hire teachers and janitors alike. This makes perfect sense to spend tax money on, since educating today’s youth leads to a stronger leadership tomorrow.
Health Care. Seniors and children mostly benefit from government-run health care systems for the necessary medications they use, as well as for emergencies and general well-being. Then again, without hospitals, we’d have a crappy time trying to live as long as we do. This also makes perfect sense. If you take care of your citizens, they will take care of you.
Lawmaking and Review. We pay our congress on the local state and federal levels to come up with laws, rules, and ordinances to make living our lives easier and safer, and count on them to remove those laws which have become out-dated, obsolete, or are obviously counterproductive. This makes sense because we most people have to have guidelines to follow; lines to color between, or the do whatever the hell they want.
Courts/Law Enforcement/Prisons. Our money supports the systems we have in place for enforcing the laws we make and making sure those that break them are dealt with in a proper and fair manner. In any given society, there will be people who do whatever the hell they want whether or not there are rules to follow and this part of the government budget is vital to stemming the spread of this kind of behavior. Once people have done wrong we certainly need a place for them to reflect and learn from their mistakes. This is very important.
Fire Departments. We know a fireman’s primary duty is to put out fires, but as we’ve been made well aware of in recent history, they perform other duties as well, such as saving kittens trapped in trees, rescuing people FROM fires, and cleaning up after terrorists fucking pwn us. Thank goodness we have them to do it instead of having to do it ourselves. *gives money in copious amounts*
National Defense. Let’s face it. We’re still the popular guys in the world, but opinions of us are turning so sour we kind of wish we weren’t so popular. Like maybe as popular as… Morocco or Laos. But given that even if most people DID like us there would always be a need to defend ourselves from the people who genuinely don’t like us, and the people who don’t care either way but just want our land. This is ESPECIALLY important in an age where terrorism is rampant and there is a war going on somewhere so far away that like 90% of us wouldn’t even have noticed if it weren’t for the constant news reports and missing service wo/men. If we kill them over there, they’ll like us to go back here.
Environmental Preservation and Protection. The birds… the bees… the flowers… the trees… the oil. This is all part of the earth that we ALL live on and what we do with that earth matters. Making sure the environment we’ve carved out for ourselves sustains us reasonably well without having retardedly damaging effects on the natural environment is paramount in these days of thinning ozone and dwindling oil supplies. They say that nature finds a way, but I say not without a heaping helping of tax dollars. How unfortunate.
Transportation. Where would we be without roads? Stuck at home. Going nowhere fast. This is a no-brainer.
Culture. Parks. Monuments. Museums. Memorials. Libraries. Rec. Centers. Stadiums. This is the way people remember things. This is how we represent ourselves to the world on a local level all the way up to a national level. What we appreciate says a lot about people and all of these things help keep us happy citizens. From keeping kids off the streets, to providing a quiet sanctuary where you can work in peace, to remembering people places and things that have made us better (or worse), culture will continue to DEFINE us for as long as we exist and beyond.
Utilities. Providing power, water, and a general sense that you’re being watched every time you pick up the phone to call out of country, our utilities provide our homes and businesses with the basic necessities that we stupid Americans NEED to live. This totally ignores the fact that there are completely self-sufficient tribes of bushmen in Africa who live off the land without any of this crap, because everyone knows if you stick an American without a canteen in the Serengeti he’s gonna DIE like immediately. So we need this stuff. It’s that important.
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