Tax Time
It's time to pay taxes. In a Wall Street Journal Op-ed today, Ari Fleischer, former official in the Bush administration, suggests we all pay our taxes. His key point: "It's funny what happens when everyone pays the bills; Americans may want less spending so they can pay fewer bills."
He uses lots of interesting statistics to make his point. Whether or not you agree that "the rich" are paying enough taxes as it is, or whether or not you agree with the President's suggested tax bill, it's simply common sense that the more of us who have "skin in the game" the more we'll keep our eye on what the government spends.
And the more of us who keep our eyes on what the government spends, the more conscious the Congress (which approves government spending) will be of our oversight. At least that's the way it should work.
We all know that the government has a way of making things that should be simple, like the tax code, complicated. So complicated that virtually no one really understands what the heck is going on. The government's also got a way of talking about "rich vs. poor" in a way that suits them. It's all part of a game to distract and divide us.
We don't understand the tax system; we're always debating issues of "rich vs. poor." Net result: we pay less attention to how the Congress actually spends our tax dollars. And when fewer of us pay taxes, or pay a lot less taxes, fewer of us will pay any attention whatoever.
No doubt it's best to pay less, not more taxes. But it's not best to have some pay and not others. Then all you wind up with is some demanding more benefits with others paying for them. Isn't that what we have now?
Get everyone into the game, and we'll see which are the really important and essential programs on which the government really needs to be spending our money. The key is "our" money.
He uses lots of interesting statistics to make his point. Whether or not you agree that "the rich" are paying enough taxes as it is, or whether or not you agree with the President's suggested tax bill, it's simply common sense that the more of us who have "skin in the game" the more we'll keep our eye on what the government spends.
And the more of us who keep our eyes on what the government spends, the more conscious the Congress (which approves government spending) will be of our oversight. At least that's the way it should work.
We all know that the government has a way of making things that should be simple, like the tax code, complicated. So complicated that virtually no one really understands what the heck is going on. The government's also got a way of talking about "rich vs. poor" in a way that suits them. It's all part of a game to distract and divide us.
We don't understand the tax system; we're always debating issues of "rich vs. poor." Net result: we pay less attention to how the Congress actually spends our tax dollars. And when fewer of us pay taxes, or pay a lot less taxes, fewer of us will pay any attention whatoever.
No doubt it's best to pay less, not more taxes. But it's not best to have some pay and not others. Then all you wind up with is some demanding more benefits with others paying for them. Isn't that what we have now?
Get everyone into the game, and we'll see which are the really important and essential programs on which the government really needs to be spending our money. The key is "our" money.
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