Thus past week Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin’s wife, Louise Linton, wrote the following about their tax burden: “Pretty sure the amount we sacrifice per year is a lot more than you'd be willing to sacrifice if the choice was yours. You’re adorably out of touch.”
The irony of that statement is that Linton claims that the person she is responding to on Instagram is out of touch. Well, Ms. Linton, I hate to break it to you, but you are the one who is out of touch. Paying taxes on wealth that most Americans can only dream of is not a fucking sacrifice. It is your duty as an American citizen to pay your fair share toward the common good.
The very definition of sacrifice is the destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else; something given up or lost. That says nothing about paying your damned taxes. It’s doubtful Linton will be reading this, but just in case she does, let’s throw out some actual sacrifices.
During the Great Depression many sacrifices were made. Parents would go hungry so that their children could eat. Children would drop out of school to help the family bring in a few extra dollars. Fathers would leave in search of work, hoping to send money home. Entire families were uprooted when they could no longer pay the rent. In my dad’s case, when food was short, my grandmother would somehow stretch out a hambone, eggs, and bread for a couple of weeks. Soup, beans on bread, and fried noodles were just some of her recipes. Neighbors would reach out and help each other. When a tornado knocked down my grandparent’s barn, anything that could be reused from the old barn was reused, including nails. Neighbors brought scrap lumber, nails, tools, and their labor. The barn was rebuilt, and not a single item had to be purchased. Neighbors sacrificed for each other.
During World War II the sacrifices ranged far and wide. On the home front, everything from gasoline and tires to meat and sugar was rationed, and families even gave up their family dogs for the war effort. Young men put their lives on hold to serve their country, with 407,000 of them making the ultimate sacrifice and never coming home.
Sacrifices are made every day in this country, like the parent working three jobs so that their child can go to college. Or the newly divorced father who eats nothing but ramen noodles on the days he does not have his children so they do not go without, and won’t realize how tough times are. There’s the single mother who works full time and goes to school part time to make a better life for her children. And the elementary school teacher who uses his own money to purchase school supplies so no student in his classroom goes without. There are the parents who work full time jobs and come home to coach their children’s sports teams because there are not enough volunteers. And don’t forget about the young man or woman who joins the military to serve their country, the people who give everything of themselves to those who are in need.
Sacrifices are all around us. We see them every day. Some of them may be small and inconsequential in the grand scheme of things while other sacrifices can make you wonder how much someone can give. In all cases, paying your taxes is not a sacrifice. It is your duty as an American.
Linton’s thoughts are just a small microcosm of the Trump administration’s views. They have never known want, and they have never known sacrifice. There is precedent for Linton’s comments. In philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Confessions, he related the story of a great princess saying “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche,” or as we know it today, “Let them eat cake,” a phrase often erroneously attributed to Marie Antoinette (even during her time). And we know how things turned out for her.
Ms. Linton, her husband, and his associates have no idea what it is like to sacrifice, or how it feels to struggle to make it from paycheck to paycheck. They will never know what it is like to have to decide between putting gas in the car to get to work or buying a gallon of milk. For her to even utter the word sacrifice shows how little she has in common with the average American, and shows just how far out of touch the Trump administration is.