Grandstanding over the latest fake outrage is what republicans have proven time and time they do best. And of course, there is usually a conflict between reality and the very thing(s) they are protesting. With taxes, there have been a lot of counter frames, but the reality of it is, even though views of paying income tax is at the highest level since the 1950’s, taxes pay for a helluva lot of stuff that We the People take for granted.
Sure, it would be better (much better) if we could pay less or if we could get better and more comprehensive health care coverage or they weren’t wasted or that there weren’t so many loopholes for the $100 billion in annual lost revenue from tax shelters.
But one of the best ways to counter this ridiculous show of hypocrisy and sour grapes is to start pushing the discussion of taxes into a direction of the services that we receive and take advantage of every day – and frankly, take for granted. These services that would (1) likely cost a whole lot more if they were privatized, and in a number of instances (2) would be poorer service if provided in a privatized manner.
Let’s start with some of the basics – firefighters, first responders and police. If one of the teabaggers’ house was on fire, would they let it burn because of the "waste" of their money going to pay for firefighters? Or if their house was broken into, would they be ok with the police not investigating it? What about on 9/11 – would it have been better if the NYPD or the FDNY didn’t save all of the people in the Towers before they fell?
How about the military? Talk about not supporting the troops. How will we fight all of the wars that the republicans wanted (and want) us to fight? Or take the events from this past week – who would have rescued Captain Phillips from the Somali pirates if our taxes didn’t pay to train the Navy SEALS? Is national security no longer something that the teabaggers are interested in?
Should there be no air travel, since air traffic controllers are public employees, paid with our tax dollars? And should there be no mail delivery, since the US Postal Service is also paid for by our tax dollars (and even with the increasing cost of postage, it is still way better than private courier)? And public schools – which I am sure that many of these teabaggers send their children to as private schools are fairly costly. Should our children continue to fall further and further behind other countries in terms of education?
Take it to the most local level too. Taxes pay for garbage collection, paving of roads, snow removal, salting the roads when they ice over, building and repairing bridges, tunnels and in many instances, public transit. Will the teabaggers never leave their houses to travel on these bridges, roads and tunnels? Will they let their garbage pile up for weeks, months or years?
What about something as basic as food safety? Making sure that food isn’t poisoned with hazardous chemicals and is prepared according to basic standards? How about the FDIC insuring deposits of our hard earned money? Will the teabaggers be happy losing their savings if their bank goes under? What about cleaning up when the private companies spill hazardous waste – take the Exxon spill, the oil spills after hurricane Katrina, train crashes that release toxic chlorine gas (or other gas) into the air. How about parks, prisons, the National Guard, hospitals, the Federal or State court systems and other services that we take for granted?
I had a discussion with someone recently who made a very good point – he said this: Does paying taxes suck? Yeah, it does. But paying for cars sucks, too. Paying for food sucks, too. Paying rent sucks. But we do all those things and just take it. Why is it when we get a better deal from the government -- which has policies that make all those things cheaper, BTW -- we complain about it?
A very good point, if you ask me. And a very good way to turn this tax nonsense on its head to talk about it in terms of what we get for a pretty reasonable amount of money – certainly as compared to all of the other things that we also have to pay for.
These hypocritical teabaggers should give up everything that they get if they don’t want to pay taxes. No firefighters. No mail. No garbage collection. No police, schools, road repairs or snow removal. Let’s see how long it takes before they start whining about that too.
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Update [2009-4-15 12:48:23 by clammyc]: Already some good additions from the comments:
highways, water, Medicare, Social Security, unemployment benefits and of course, their tax cuts and rebates from the present bill are just a few of many more...