Tax Time Reminds Us to Reflect on Govt. Representation

As we stare down tax day, we shouldn't just be scrutinizing our ailing bank accounts, we should also be scrutinizing the government that is spending our hard-earned money. After all, just as your money is your mouth, your government's spending should be representative of your values and ideals.

How is the federal government repping you, oh loyal citizen?

Leading economists estimate that we will end up spending $3 trillion dollars on war that 66 percent of Americans current oppose and 71 percent think is one of the reasons for our nation's poor economy (according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll).

The $30.9 billion that we've spent on "homeland security" last year has led, as far as I can tell, to stricter scrutiny of breast milk in airports and a lot of people walking around in public with mismatched socks. Not exactly testament to our improved reputation globally, the real measure of how safe we are in the world.

The public education system continues to fail the students most in need despite the fact that over $400 billion is spent on it annually -- usually about half of that going to improving instruction. America's Promise Alliance, an education non-profit, just announced comparative graduation rates for the 50 biggest cities across the nation and found wild disparity; 77 percent of students earn a diploma in Mesa, Arizona, the city with the highest rate, while only a quarter of high schools students in Detroit walk across the graduation stage.

I don't mind paying taxes on principle. I like the idea of sharing my wealth -- or what little of it there is -- to support those in my community. In fact, I'm a devotee of Jean Jacques Rousseau, who argued that with rights comes responsibility, that a polity must reflect our interconnection in its infrastructure.

But our own government is taking our hard-earned effort at practicing community ethics and funneling it into violent, ineffective, and inconsistent policies and programs. It's like the opposite of Robin Hood -- steal from the middleclass, kill the poor, and give to the rich (in the form of private military contractors).

Anti-war women, as part of Code Pink, have launched a campaign for those who object to the seemingly never ending war to withhold a proportion of their taxes -- 7% for the military occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, 31% for current military spending, or a whopping 51% for total military expenses.

I challenge them to go one step further and give those withheld monies to failing schools. If the government won't represent our civic values, maybe we have to take our country's spending into our own hands.

Courtney E. Martin is a Brooklyn-based writer who already paid her taxes before stumbling upon Code Pink's campaign. You can read more about her work at www.courtneyemartin.com.

Comments

[Erdgeist]

Any study of wars cum economy has one verdict: inflation. This is a fact of economic history. But that we, the taxpayers, have to pay so much to this government so that it has the necessary revenues with which to run, is total trash. For over 100 years, from the early 1800s to just after 1913, Americans didn't pay an income tax! So, from where did the government garner its revenues? It was from tariffs. In today’s money this might amount to somewhere betwee 300 and 800 billion dollars a year! That’s right. Great America, at one time, ran her mighty engines on tariff derived revenues. Only with the implementation of "free trade" and "free market" ideas came the dark day when the American taxpayer had to shoulder the cost of the Federal government. When Great Britian bought the scatology of "free trade" and "free markets" it lost the economic race to the United States and Prince Bismarck's Germany. Now we have bought the scatology. We are going the way of Great Britian, while the Asian countries are the new America. But we can change--in a heart beat. Just demand tariffs and remember the words of this Representative from, ironically, the great state of Pennsylvina: "Repeal the tariffs [and] adopt. . . 'free trade,' and you will bring down labor here, in every department of industry, to the level of the labor of the serfs and paupers of Europe." -- Andrew Stewart [1836-1903]), Representative from Pennsylvania

[Rule Of Law]

Bought some bread today. Now I'll be walking to work for a week.

[scooperss]

Representation?
I no longer consider myself represented.

Moreover, I will consider myself unrepresented until the current representatives in my state are ousted.

[Podewumun]

For all the good it does us, we might as well stand out in the street and burn the money we're sending to Unka Sam today. Bush and his Republican cronies have ruined this country.

[WIpatriot]

Good luck with that Code Pink plan on two levels. First, the taxes citizens pay just about covers the interest on the debt and that's it. None of it goes to pay for wars or anything else...it's all borrowed. Second, just try not paying taxes if you want some REAL excitement in your life.

[Rule Of Law]

Yeah, but do they have dog sled IRS teams to reach you there in the tundra?

[hopeless277]

You either pay or go directly to jail. Did you know that failing to pay your federal income taxes gets you designated as an 'Enemy Combatant' whcih automatically strips you of your citizenship? We'll see just how much Code Pink cares once they feel the whip on their backs. After all, this is America, the nation that tortures and kills it's own people just to feed off their carcases.

[ElkoJohn]

`
what Govt. Representation?

---As reported on FOX Business News ---
9. Democracy failing: America now run by 35,000 lobbyists!
Forget government "of the people, by the people, and for the people." Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is now a small group of 35,000 highly paid, greedy lobbyists demanding handouts. They run America from the shadows, for those at the top of the economic food chain and vastly outnumber Washington's 537 elected officials. Nationally there's an estimated quarter million lobbyists, with hundreds of millions of dollars to buy favors in campaign contributions. Politicians talk "change," but America's lobbyists will still be working for their special interest clients in 2009. And they'll fight all "changes."
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/industries/finance/article/bernankes-recession-11-reasons-till-2011_493852_9.html

'til we fix 'merika
only the rich & powerful can love us


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