I first published this in May 2009 at Yahoo Voices. Sadly it's still relevant.
The original title was Why We Pay Taxes.
Almost daily there is somebody in the news commenting that taxes undercut our freedom - that we know how to spend our money better than the government does. Taxes, we are led to believe, are un-American. Government is the problem, as Ronald Reagan famously said. Therefore we should starve it. The private sector can do it better, whatever it is. Read my lips, said George H. W. Bush, no new taxes.
Nobody ever asks these people whether it is really true, whether taxes are the enemy of freedom. I would ask the question differently: can we have freedom without paying taxes?
Governments, said Thomas Jefferson, are established among men to secure their rights. Establishing a government entails individuals giving up some of their freedom for the common good. This means that my rights are not more or less important than anyone else's rights, and that government is established in part to insure that I don't claim rights at your expense. I cannot build a house where I want if where I want is on your land. I cannot celebrate a victory by beating up the first three people I see.
And so each of us owns a share of the government. We pay for this share with our taxes, just as we pay for it with some of our freedom. So we develop a fund and pay into it and hire people to see that it works. Our taxes are the price we pay to secure our collective freedom.
Consider this: you rent a large house and take in three or four house-mates. Certain expenses are necessarily shared - the rent, the utilities. But then you have choices. Should each of you have your own phone installed and be responsible for your own phone bill? Should you each buy your own food and prepare your own meals? Should you divide all the chores, or hire someone for some of them - trimming the trees, or painting the house, for example? Or should you share the expense of food and pay into a common fund for the rest of the household expenses? (I know I am showing my age by using an example from before cell phones.)
Similarly, there are some costs of government that must be shared. These include the salaries of the people we hire, infrastructure costs, and national defense. So we must pay taxes to support these government functions. Then there are some things that one government does better than smaller units - establishing currency, regulating interstate commerce, a postal service. Postal service is an example of private companies providing some overlapping services. And banks used to issue their own banknotes as currency; it is safer, however, having a government currency only. Our taxes are used to pay for these services as well.
One of the undisputed roles of government is to provide for public safety. This is not limited to national defense. We have seen the result of not funding other agencies of government entrusted with public safety. FEMA is there to assist in times of natural disaster. When government does not pay adequately for what it must do, we see travesties like our response to Hurricane Katrina. And when we don't pay for adequate maintenance of infrastructure, we see disasters like the levees of New Orleans giving way, or the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota. Our tax monies should cover adequate funding for such things. If we had paid for making stronger levees, we would not have had to pay for the horrors of the flooding in New Orleans.
We have also seen the results of inadequate inspection of imported goods, with melamine in baby formula, with dangerous plastics in children's toys. We expect government to do better. We must pay into the government funds for this. Also, a series of mine disasters brought the inadequacy of our mine safety enforcement not so long ago. More need for taxes for the common good. George W. Bush set about dismantling OSHA and the EPA, to lower taxes, and we are seeing the results.
We live in a country where we enjoy great and important rights, including the pursuit of happiness. It is rather like belonging to a special club. Our taxes are the dues we pay for our membership. And like many clubs, there are different levels of benefits. It is fitting that those who reap the greatest benefits pay the higher dues. That is all that progressive taxes are - those with the greatest privileges from our nation, pay higher dues.