I listen to a lot of NPR while riding around, thanks to suggestions from Dan and Ellie a few years ago. I'll be the first to acknowledge NPR and probably most of its listeners lean toward the left. So to provide some balance I steel my teeth and occasionally tune into some right wing talk radio to keep abreast of what the yahoos are saying about how our country is going to hell in a hand basket led by a Kenyan communist president who is going to take all our guns away and impose a dictatorship of like-minded people of color who will redistribute the wealth of true-blue real Americans, meaning white Americans. These TBRAs want to return to a simpler time, say, 100 years ago.
One of my retired business buddies from time to time sends me emails of right wing screeds. Friday he treated me to two of them. First, there was the claim that retired congressmen and senators have pensions totaling $174,000 per year for life. This claim, of course, is not true. Here's a link that will detail what they are eligible to receive after five years of service (http://www.senate.gov/reference/common/faq/retirement_for_members.shtml). I sent him the link as well.
His second email demanded a more intimate response. He had forwarded a screed that bemoaned all the taxes we pay in the United States, taxes that did not exist 100 years ago, a time when we were the most prosperous nation in the world. Here's the list:
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges
IRS Penalties
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Here’s what I quickly wrote back:
Not sure if we were richest country 100 years ago (as the screed asserted). It might have been Great Britain still, but they were fading. As to why we have so many taxes, consider that 100 years ago we did not have social security. We didn't have an extensive road network. Most food was not processed by outsiders, nor were many drugs available, so we needed better regulations. We hadn't fought in two world wars and countless skirmishes since then, so our military was much smaller. Most people back then earned less than a thousand dollars a year. Do we want to go back to those times? Do we want to return to the days when women didn't vote, when blacks were not treated equally, when education was limited to the wealthy?
These look-backs at simpler times can be amusing, but I doubt most people would like to go back and live in homes that all too often did not have indoor plumbing, or even electricity, that used dirty coal to heat. We live in the greatest nation in the world today. Shouldn't we expect to pay something for that privilege?
I'm sure anyone who doesn't want to pay all the taxes listed in this email can find many countries where no such taxes are levied. There's nothing stopping them from emigrating to them and making room for all those who want to enjoy the freedom to pay those taxes.