My friend Bill is president of his local school board in Wisconsin. A man of staggering intelligence and social conscience, who has never suffered fools gladly, he called me last week and we talked about the goings on in his district.
Of all the governmental units I’ve covered, state, federal and local, I’ve always been amazed that anybody voluntarily serves on a school board. People use their kids as an excuse to say and do the most awful things. Those awful things are often said and done to school boards. As tough as I’ve been on school boards at times, I’ve never done that without basing it on a huge amount of respect. The job is worse than thankless.
Bill’s situation isn’t at all unusual. As he talked about the various issues and personalities he faces, absolutely nothing surprised me. Einstein once said that two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and he wasn’t certain about the universe.
One of the most interesting things, and for him one of the most maddening, is how he’s had to actually explain to some of his colleagues that a school board basically is a mechanism for divvying up tax dollars – and that the taxes actually have to be levied.
And that’s not even counting members of the public to whom he’s had to explain the necessity of paying taxes. People are extremely squirrelly on the subject.
The fact is, if you so much as like to have your garbage collected, you have no right to bitch about paying taxes. You can complain all you want about the amount, but if you use even one public service – and we all use the cops, the firefighters, those garbage collectors, the sewers – you have no right to bitch about taxes as a concept.
It’s always amazed me that many people who style themselves “patriots” raise such a hue and cry about paying taxes. They’ll never admit it, but there’s a pretty obvious subtext in what they say: They don’t even like the concept of taxation. That’s really the push behind much of the “smaller government” crowd; it isn’t a philosophical issue, they just don’t like opening up their wallets for things they’re not personally buying.
That’s especially true for government measures with which they disagree. I can understand why, for example, some anti-abortion people get hinky about any public funding for abortions, because that means their tax dollars help pay for something they deeply believe is evil.
Unfortunately, one of the disadvantages of living in a republic is you don’t get to choose where your tax dollars go. I was hugely opposed to the war in Iraq, but I didn’t get to withhold a portion of my federal tax to avoid paying for a war I believe is immoral and just plain wrong. Besides, even if I could, all that would do is hurt the troops on the front lines; it wouldn’t change the policy. Nor do I like the government funneling money into “faith-based initiatives,” because I think giving public money to any religious organization for any reason is neither constitutional nor right. It’s not even practical, because it puts those religious organizations at the financial mercy of the government. And don’t even get me started on government-funded “abstinence” programs.
But I don’t get to pick and choose, and neither does anybody else.
Those of us who live in or near Minnesota have a real object lesson in just how much harm the basic anti-tax impulse does. Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s “no new taxes” pledge, which he’s hung onto like grim death, has done an incredible amount of harm to the state. First of all, it’s intellectually dishonest. All it means is that while the state doesn’t have to hike taxes, local jurisdictions do to replace missing state money. And it’s simply wrong and impractical; we have teacher layoffs basically because Minnesota’s governor wants to be president and is trying to appeal to his party’s most troglodytic elements.
It’s especially odious when people bitch about school taxation. Sure, there’s waste and stupidity in school spending, just like there is in any area where large amounts of money are laid out. But the vast majority of money that goes to schools goes for the most important thing, education and the future of children. Yet, because school districts have to deal with the anti-tax crowd, teachers have to spend their own money to buy supplies for students and kids who want to participate in anything have to pay sometimes prohibitive participation fees. Shame on all of us for that.
A lot of those self-styled “patriots” who complain loudest about taxes love to talk about the Founding Fathers who broke away from England because of things like unfair taxation. That’s true, but you also have to remember something about those guys: They were very upper-crust. The kinds of oppressive measures that the crown was imposing on them hit the wealthy the hardest. Indentured servants didn’t have a terribly complicated tax picture. It wasn’t government levies that made their lives difficult.
In fact, many of those who complain loudest about taxes today aren’t unlike the Founding Fathers in one way: They have the most money and can afford to pay them.
At its most basic level, paying taxes is a citizen’s duty. Are they too high? Depends on what they’re for. Is there waste? Sure. Can this country exist without them? Certainly not. Does some of our tax money need to go to the less fortunate? Yes, if we’re going to call ourselves civilized and if we want to avoid the kind of social strife that comes when people get tired of being poor in a land of plenty.
I’m not crazy about paying taxes either. But I’m less crazy about having garbage piling up outside my home, having no cops to protect me and failing to educate children. It isn’t even a hard choice.
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Another point to consider: One of the Founders' beefs, of course, was also the taxation without representation issue. (Though they talked out of both sides of their mouths--they strongly asserted that "virtual representation" by British-elected MPs was representation while flatly stating that any plan for having colonial representatives was a non-starter. But we'll set that aside for n0w.) Those who complain about taxes here don't have that argument. We--well, somebody--elects the government. If your guy wins, you had a chance to influence what gets taxed and how much. If not, well, deal with it.
There's no reason that private trash collection (which is the way of things in some areas), private security, and even private fire and emergency services, could not fill this need if we were to restructure our society in a way that allowed for that.
Perhaps taxes are more efficient, perhaps these services represent natural monopolies, but we can't know for sure, because we're not given a choice in the matter.
Just because I like having my trash collected doesn't mean I like who's collecting it.
I don't that I agree. I think you don't give people enough credit. For me, it's not about disliking the concept of taxes. No one minds paying to have their garbage collected or police on duty. I think much of the frustration stems from corruption. We see it in politics and we see it in big business.
When we see corruption in business, we have the option not to do business there. When we see corruption in politics and misuse of tax dollars, we don't get to take our tax dollars elsewhere. Hence the frustration. Just my opinion, of course.
Privatization of some services is not a good idea - if only because corporations in this country are given such free rein in how they run. Besides, how much would they charge to put out my fire? I already think it's horrific that people go bankrupt for cancer treatment - let's not put them out of their homes in order to pay for putting out fires in their homes.
Essentially, as much as people mistrust government, it's still more transparent than many private companies - at least under our current deregulation system.
But, when it comes to trash collection - I don't disagree. Then again, if your neighbor decides not to pay for it but instead keeps his trash for months before going to the dump or burns it in his backyard, you might not like that, either. :)
I'm a conservative. I don't like taxes, just like almost everyone else. That said, taxes are a necessity, and I pay them. However, the government should do it's best to spend wisely and efficiently.
About government vs corporate services - certainly there is corruption, waste and misuse in the government, but I trust corporations far less than the government. A corporation's only mandate is to make a profit and it's usually done by any means necessary.
This should be "memeographed" and distributed to every man, woman and child in the U.S. as required reading. Everyone should have to initial it and return it to you.
This is arguably the most consise and best explanation that I have ever had the privilege of reading on this topic.
Thanks.
(While reading, I remember back in 1974 when my first wife got a teaching job in Fisher, MN while I worked on my MA at UND--She was making the whopping sum of $7200 for the year compared to $6000 she would have made in the Grand Forks schools. I recall her mentioning that taxes in Minnesota were higher than in North Dakota but you could see the difference in the services you get. That apparently is no longer the case in MN.)
How has the party of "patriotism" managed to convince its dimmest-bulb constituents that they're entitled to all the benefits of a civilized nation, but that they, personally, shouldn't share the costs?
Sickening.
Fire doesn't, particularly in dense neighborhoods where an unextinguished fire is a big risk to the neighbors. Yeah, the Fire Dept could send a bill after the fact, but what if the recipient can't pay?
Police protection probably doesn't work well either. In a poor neighborhood, if too few people contributed, the paying customers might not be able to pay for meaningful prevention of muggings. In rich neighborhoods, frequent police patrols might deter criminals from houses of free riders.
Why do the rich complain the loudest about taxes? They pay the most. The richest 10% of taxpayers (basically an income at or above 110K) pay over 70% of all (federal) taxes paid. The poorer HALF of income earners pay under 3%. No, that's not thirty, that's three. (In case you were wondering, the poorer half make well over 3% of the nations declared income and the richest 10% well under 70% of it).
Large areas of the southwest US are served by private providers. The largest US provider covers over 400 communities in 23 states. Private fire companies are often owned and managed by former public sector firefighters who use their non-active time doing more to prevent fires than public sector departments. The more fires they prevent beforehand, the less they need to spend on fuel, equipment, etc.
Before public departments (Boston was the first) most fire companies were funded by insurance companies, who had an interest in protecting their policyholders' homes.
The fact is, private companies aren't accountable to anybody but their owners/stockholders. As imperfect as government is, the public at least has some recourse.
That is roundly ignored in most discussions of privatizing government services. Blackwater, anyone?
And as for competition keeping prices down, that might work in larger urban areas, but for the vast majority of the country it wouldn't. I mean, Fargo, for example, isn't big enough that there'd be a robust competition for private garbage contracts.
In other words, you can and do get screwed either by government or private companies. I'll take my screwing from the government, because it's harder (not impossible, but harder) for government to cover that up.
But I was writing about the world as it is, which means government provides a lot of common services. And while the point is taken that not all conservatives object to the idea of taxation, I think it's a matter of subtext among a lot of the anti-tax crowd. It's kind of like a lot of abortion opponents, whose objections are as much to sex (and unmarried people having it) as to abortion. A lot of people just aren't honest about their basic motivations on issues and I think taxes is an area where that happens.
For example, when local municipalities accept bids on construction projects, all the bid information and bid results are PUBLIC. There is also usually a period of time to DISPUTE results (how's that, Founding Fathers??). And the contracts themselves are publicly available. Is gubmint "the answer?" No. But neither is "no gubmint." On it's face, the idea that government "can't do anything right" is truly an insult to the people who make up those agencies and do those jobs, and I think it is high time to retire this notion because it is demeaning and unproductive.
(No, I don't work in goverment!)
"Most notorious was his acquisition of burning houses: when Crassus received word that a house was on fire, he would arrive and purchase the doomed property along with surrounding buildings for a modest sum, and then employ his army of 500 clients to put the fire out before much damage had been done. Crassus' clients employed the Roman method of firefighting -- destroying the burning building to curtail the spread of the flames."
He was the richest man in Rome, by far and owned huge chunks of the Subura, a most disreputable neighborhood, and boyhood home of his rival Caesar.
I, like many here have less confidence in the fealty of corporations to the people they "serve" than I do in government...I'm with Tom..I'd "rather take my screwing from the government" too.
Great post!!
It just doesn't make sense the way I first typed it.
However, there does need to be some form of enforcement of anti-dumping as people too cheap to pay for trash collection and no local dump with dump stuff in the woods. It may just be easier for towns to collect the trash as a public service than to police illegal dumping.