The word "taxes" is one of the most explosive words in the English (or any other) language. At its core, it's about someone taking something away from you for someone else. Or at least so it is portrayed...!
In truth, taxes are simply the rent we pay to live in a country. The bleeding edge of this concept is not whether there should be taxes, but how they're levied and spent. In our own history, the taxes imposed by the British Parliament were what triggered the American Revolution. Sure enough, right after we became a nation, the very first civil unrest was the Whiskey Rebellion by New Englanders protesting taxes imposed by the American Congress.
Fast forwarding to 2009, and most of the political wrangling is about -- you guessed it! -- taxes.
Interestingly, no one ever refuses the benefits of taxes. The Coast Guard, the armed services, the national highway system, dams, flood controls, meat inspection, and when the time comes Social Security and Medicare. But in the meantime, some of the loudest complaints come from business and the lobbyists of business. We are told that taxes are choking the American capitalistic system -- you know the system that just helped bring down the whole financial deck of cards! Also, we are told, taxes are killing off economic daring and enterprise.
That's a complex argument with far too many complexities for any easy answer. However, here are a few statistics from the US Government from 2007. Statistics are peculiar things, though, because they can be translated by different people into different conclusions. So these stats are for each translator to decipher their own way.
In 2007, more than 2.5 million US companies filed corporate tax returns. But because of "loopholes and write-offs, their payments "generated just 15% of the total federal tax revenue."
How do you translate 15%....? It may be an absolute number, but it is not an absolute fact. Numbers become facts only once they are translated through the mind and the value system of the beholder. Voltaire wrote over 200 years ago words that seem to have relevance in today's instant-statistics age of 24/7 information: "Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively."
Take your choice!
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Well, you might say "IT'S THE STUPID TAXES". Voltaire, it appears, was more prescient than he dreamt. We not only think too many things, we do to many things and, worse, we report (Twitter, etc.) too many things. Can it be we are gravitating from the age of reason to the age of madness?
ReplyDeleteAs a quick impression, I see "madness" running neck and neck with reason right now. But gaining with every new reality show, radio/cable yellfest, and assorted silliness! Age is supposed make you either more grumpy or more wise. I submit it can do both at the very same time....
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