While shopping for Thanksgiving today, I saw the food donation thing at the store.
That started me thinking about what I am thankful for. And one of the main things I am thankful for is the ability to pay taxes here in the US.
Since my tax rate isn't really high enough, I decided to donate a few hundred dollars to the food bank. But, that's beside the point.
Below the break, various thoughts on why paying taxes makes me thankful.
I grew up in the middle of the country in a socially conservative family. Old fashioned social conservative: work hard, pray hard, never ask for help, always try to offer help if possible.
Certainly not a perfect family. My grandfather was a blatant racist. I got more than one good hard whipping for playing tag on a Sunday. But overall, good.
We lived in a mixed middle class and lower middle class area. I remember in the late seventies the mine closed and it switched from 10-20% of the kids having the blue lunch ticket (free lunch) to only 10-20% of the kids having the red lunch ticket (subsidized).
But my friends ate lunch. Thanks to people paying taxes in the US.
And I still had the red lunch ticket. Because my mother had a job teaching public school at another school. That job existed thanks to people paying taxes in the US.
Shortly after, one of my younger sisters (big family) got old enough that her mental disability required more care than my family could provide. The state social workers provided training for my parents and for us older kids on how to deal with the emotional impact of a screaming/violent child.
We got that needed assistance thanks to people paying taxes in the US.
I went to public school along with all of my siblings. Solid education and the ability to grow into your capacity. My disabled sister went to special education at the public school and without that either my mother or father would have had to quit working and thrown us from middle class down into the food stamp economic tier of many of my classmates.
Thank god for taxes.
When I graduated from high school, I got a scholarship at a land grant university. Yes, I "earned" it with good grades, hard studying, and a lucky roll of the genetic dice. But the opportunity was there for me thanks to the american taxpayer.
In university, not all went well. I had a relapse of depression and started drinking way too much. Went from A's to F's essentially overnight. Got arrested several times and ended up on simultaneous academic and non-academic suspension.
Meanwhile, a high school girl I was dating got pregnant. Fortunately, her parents were less conservative than mine. So even in a parental notification state it didn't go the way of my "birds and bees" conversation my father gave me at 16: "keep it in your pants or you'll get her knocked up and after beating the shit out of you I'll be driving you to zales and then to the army recruiting office so you can turn her into an honest woman with a man to support her."
But even if it had gone that way, and it did for several of my friends, the taxpayer provides those military jobs so that young men can support their family.
I got free counseling from the university. My high school girlfriend got free post-abortion counseling from planned parenthood. I got a job as a teamster for a year.
Then the land grant university readmitted me. Ultimately I got both a BS and an MS from that university. The MS was with honors.
After that, we moved to silicon valley where I got a job as an engineer. Right after turning my girlfriend into an "honest woman" LOL.
That education, counseling, support, etc. provided by the taxpayer allowed me to reach my potential. And I climbed the ladder.
We are now very solidly in the upper 5%. Essentially the personification of the American dream. My tax rate is the highest marginal and annually it averages out to about 25% income tax rate.
By the time you add in local taxes, property taxes, etc. I'm above 30% in actual tax rate.
I am so grateful for that tax bill.
My children go to a great public school, admittedly in an upper middle class neighborhood in Seattle.
My sister has gone from mentally disabled to very mentally ill. But social services here in seattle provide her with medication, counseling, housing, and other basic needs. This is a godsend since nobody in my family is equipped with the destruction of living with her in our house.
I am so grateful for my tax bill.
We can afford it. We can afford more. Yes, if you bump the marginal rates up I'll have to cut back somewhere. Tighten our belt. But we can.
Without the taxpayers before me, I would be poor, uneducated, and probably an alcoholic. Increase my taxes, thanks.