Paying For "Those People"

Dumb Thinking

Another tax deadline comes and goes.   Most of us pay up or get back some money we loaned interest-free to the federal or state governments over the past year.   It's been a way of life in this country for at least a century.    We generally accept it as one of the few sure things in life.   Is that acceptance changing?    With at least one of the presidential contenders, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, calling for the abolition of the Internal Revenue Service.   This plays into a sentiment on the right that increasingly distrusts the federal government and expresses resentment over sending money to "those people" in the form of various programs.   At the same time, those "red states" where the feeling is most pervasive are also the biggest beneficiaries of our federal tax dollars.    The right wing is also tone deaf to the unprecedented tax breaks given to the largest service-oriented businesses that routinely pay their employees poverty wages to the point where many full-time workers get federal assistance.   Who pays for that, McDonald's corporation and Walmart heirs?    The wealthiest one tenth of one per cent of Americans get a huge break by avoiding any inheritance tax.

The poorest in our society often get the blame for bleeding our public coffers dry, yet the savings of weeding out abusers of the welfare system for drug abuse wouldn't even justify the cost of screening aid recipients.   To date, nobody has come up with a better system proven to fairly tax everyone according to their means and needs, including a proposed "flat tax" across the board or more regressive sales taxes.    Libertarian calls for abolition of the income tax do not provide an acceptable alternative.   If you want to reform the system for fairness, we can talk.   If you want to slam the I.R.S. as just another evil arm of our government in your Utopian dreams or polarizing route to a Presidential run, count me out.