01-05-2009 12:34 PM
I, like most other people, hate paying taxes.* Like most, I’d rather keep my money in my pocket and have more to take care of my family’s needs.* But, when I travel down a beat up road or travel over a bridge, not knowing the last time some maintenance was done on it, or see a fire truck responding to an emergency, I realize that taxes do have a real purpose.
Like many in the “middle-class”, I would like to see my taxes cut but, I really wonder, given our country’s economic situation, if cutting taxes is really a prudent way to get things going again.
We tried Bush’s tax cuts and, along with his administration’s other bonehead moves (Iraq, anyone?), this country was driven into a ditch.* So, I wonder if the proposed
$300 billion-worth of tax cuts put forth by President-elect Obama is really what we need.
I know that my reaction is knee-jerk but, when I look at all the things that need to be fixed in this country (infrastructure, anyone?), I wonder where we would get the money or if we would even try.* Do we really need another bridge collapse like the one in Minnesota a little over a year ago to remind us that there are real risks with not taking care of our country.* When you think about it, Americans almost unquestioningly allow billions to be sent off to foreign countries for wars and paying off other countries in the interest of “national security” but would scream bloody murder if someone put for a proposal to fix a road or pass a school levy that would raise their taxes by a few dollars a year.
Knowing that, do we really want to keep putting our national priorites on the “credit card”, so to speak? Or, to extend the metaphor, should we be adult about it and pay for things with actual cash?
Right now, I think that many in Washington are continuing with putting what’s popular over what’s prudent when it comes to economics.* I’m afraid that our new President might start off by continuing this tradition.
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Is this really the road we want to go down?
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