Flaylo
Handsome Devil
Zaki Hasan: The GOP's Tax Attacks
Now, certain moneyed and vested interests do everything they can to preserve their last dollar and help others only of their own volition. It's the Gordon Gekko thing. I totally get it. But the problem is that we can't always rely on people's better angels to help them do the right thing. That's why we create systems to institutionalize "the right thing." That's how Social Security happens. That's how Medicare happens. That's how unemployment insurance happens. We do what we can so everyone can benefit. I suppose, if you have a flair for overblown rhetoric, you could call that Socialism. I just call it being a human being.
So, when Norquist's government-drowning crusade has booster rockets strapped on it by the very representatives in that government, what does that say about them for doing it? What does that say about us for letting them? Are there inherent abuses in the tax code and the dispersal of dollars that need to be rooted out and reformed? I doubt you'll find anyone who says otherwise (I'd prefer my taxes not go toward unnecessary military ventures, for example). But our taxes also pay for roads. For water. For schools. For emergency services. More precisely, we pay for those things, and for each other in the process. The government, after all, is us. I don't want to see it drowned, I want to see it saved.