I Want A Tax Cut

Please cut my taxes. I mean, really cut 'em. Zero taxes, that's what I want. In the first place, I don't want the hassle of getting the papers together that it takes to file my tax return. I want to be able to decide how I spend every penny I am able to glom onto. I don't like to save money from month to month to pay real estate taxes every 6 months. I don't want to figure in the sales tax when trying to figure out if I can afford a major purchase. I don't like to have every little purchase bumped up by a 7-plus percent sales tax. I could drive more if part of the cost of a gallon of gas didn't include taxes. What's more, I wish my beer and liquor purchases weren't taxed, so I could by a better grade of spirits or an exotic imported beer without feeling like I was splurging. Come on, give me a break, no taxes, no how, no way.

There, in one fell swoop, I have outdone the Republican mantra of: Tax Cut, Tax Cut, Tax Cut. Never mind that government has to be paid for somehow. Public schools need money, too. Highways must be built and maintained, and so on. So, if you chant the mantra of Tax Cut, you are admitting that some taxes are necessary. But, if you are a chanter, what you're really saying is, "Let's argue about how much government we should have." You are also saying, "Let's argue about how much the economy can afford to have apportioned to taxes." And, finally, you're saying, "Let somebody else pay for government and all it does."

Well, we live in a representative republic, so we can have as much government as we want, with the caveat that the economy has absolute limits as to the amount of wealth that can be devoted to government. How do we know what that limit is? It's probably a matter of opinion, because surely if there were an empirical standard, it would have been determined by now, even if it varied by whether the economy was expanding or contracting. That thought brings us to the real question, Who pays? Of course, the other guy should pay. That's what is called personal politics. Like I said in the first paragraph, I don't want to pay taxes.

But I do pay them. We all pay them, except of course for tax evaders who under-report income, do work "off the books", engage in barter or use loopholes. I think we all should have been paying more taxes for the past umpteen years. Perhaps, the State of Kansas and other states wouldn't be facing a budget gap. Perhaps, the states would have enough cash reserves to see them through a lean tax time. Perhaps, we could have found ways to conserve our financial resources and, thus, compensate for slightly higher taxes. Perhaps, a higher Federal income tax rate would have avoided the deficits piled up from the war in Iraq or, in the alternative, the financial sacrifice would have made the war unpopular enough that our troops would have been pulled out sooner leaving the Iraqis free to settle their own problems. Taxes can actually be a good thing and we should be proud to pay whatever taxes are need to live in the greatest country on this planet.