Image from http://utopianist.com/2011/06/the-case-for-raising-taxes-on-millionaires-and-billionaires/
I want patent protections for my business to keep an advantage from its inventions. Patent registration and enforcement costs money. Tax me!
I want my company to be able to hire qualified workers. That means education can’t put students in such debt that education isn’t a worthwhile investment. Subsidizing education costs money. Tax me!
I want quality schools for my business to have competent workers. That costs money. Tax me!
I want quality schools for MY CHILDREN to be able to compete in the global market. That costs money. Tax me!
I want safe foods. Maybe most farmers mean well, but agribusiness has demonstrated time and again that it does not always do a good enough job of safeguarding food without govt oversight. That costs money. Tax me!
I want safe cars. Reputation helps motivate good engineering, but not enough. Govt standards have made a huge difference. Developing and enforcing good standards costs money. Tax me!
I want good roads on which I don’t have to pay per trip. Private industry won’t give me that. Roads cost money. Tax me!
The same goes for bridges and tunnels. Tax me!
I want to be able to breath clean air. Developing and enforcing air pollution controls costs money. Tax me!
I want to be able to drink clean water. Developing and enforcing air pollution controls costs money. Tax me!
I want military protection so that pirates — who are quite active in parts of the world these days — will expect that attacking our ships would mean that massive naval force would be breathing down their necks. I want them to expect that attacking American citizens in any waters anywhere would soon result in Navy Seals jumping up out of the water into their boats — after the Seals finished snacking on great white sharks — to teach ‘em a lesson about picking on innocent folks. Training Seals costs money. Tax me!
I want veterans who risked their life & limb to defend my country to be well care for, medically and otherwise. Tax me!
I want the innocent to be protected from unreasonable prosecution, even if they don’t have the money to defend themselves. Tax me!
I want diplomats on the task of making sure American companies can compete fairly abroad. Tax me!
I want consular services making sure that when I travel abroad — whether for business or pleasure — I can expect my govt to be looking out for my interests even there. Tax me!
When I take a domestic flight, I want to be able to expect the air traffic to be well coordinated. Tax me!
I want investment in research and development that will grow American business. Tax me!
Tax me for all the reasons this poster listed, but MUCH more importantly, tax ME so my customers aren’t taxed more. As a beef producer, I can tell you all the tax cuts in the world won’t make a difference in the long term if the whole of the poor and middle class can’t afford to go out for a steak on Friday nights. I can afford a little more. And if the alternative to me paying more taxes is for millions of our already strapped customers to shoulder a bigger financial burden, tax me even more. Apart from that being the right thing for the good of the country and the good of, well, morality, it is also the right thing for my business. Yes, the likes of Bill Kristol and the Koch Brothers, even the patriotic wealthy like Warren Buffet, might pay a couple hundred bucks for a super prime grade of filet mignon, that is a drop in the bucket as far as sustaining demand. No, we need our mailman to be able to afford to take his wife out for a $20 ribeye. We need our kid’s teacher to be able to afford to grill burgers for her baby’s birthday rather than opting for corporate hot dogs.
We have good friends who are spinach farmers. Yes, the wealthy people I listed above probably always eat the healthier and more expensive salads. We also have a friend who raises iceberg lettuce. He says even though his is used for cheaper salads, it makes no difference if that 99 cent salad is skipped at restaurants. It makes no difference if his potential customers are so cash strapped, they have to forgo salad of a y type at the grocery store.
And the thing we all have in common, regardless of what we are raising, is CORPORATE farms love when the bulk of Americans are cash strapped. That is when they skip the much better for them fresh corn and opt for corporately raised canned corn. It is when they buy processed beef mixtures somehow molded into frozen steak “fingers,” a weird chicken blend of cheap frozen “nuggets,” or the ever yuckg van de camp fish “sticks.” Or, like a friend of mine from high school recently told me, they just try to “fill their two kids empty bellies by splitting a meal of the mcdonald’s menu.”
N fact, this old friend told me she will order extra 1 buck sausage mcbiscuit to save for the day because they are the “most filling.”
So please, tax me more. I can afford it. What I can NOT afford is bankrupting 80% of my potential customers!
Well said, Shonda.
We pay taxes so that we can live the way we do, as the above explains. The only problem is that to many people think that we are automatically given those rights and freedoms without any cost to ourselves… everything costs money, and people just don’t realize, or wish to forget that the money to pay for everything we expect in our lives has to come from somewhere…and if not from the people who are receiving these benefits, then from some outside source…
This is just like the 102 things not to do if you hate taxes. We have to pay taxes, it’s what being an adult is about.