Thoughts on Paying Taxes

I finished my tax returns this past Saturday. There is nothing like tax season to make me reflect about government and government's role in spending my money. Unlike many people in this country, not only do I have tax withholding as an employee, but I also own several businesses: a sole proprietorship, a partnership, and several corporations. Most people who pay taxes through withholding don't ever see their money, unless they receive a refund. (And no, a refund isn't "free" money and it's definitely not a savings plan....) If you, like I, own your own business, you get to experience the joy of sending off money to the government, including sending off a large chunk of "self-employment" tax - paying the full tax amount of Social Security and Medicare.

But that's not what really bothers me about tax season. This year, I have so much more on my mind than experiencing the bliss of wasting an entire day on telling the federal and state governments just how much I owe them. (Yes, I'm one of the half of the country's wage earners who actually pays taxes.)

I don't mind paying taxes. I do mind when governments, especially the federal government, squanders my tax money on program after program, attempting to turn this great country into a socialist welfare state.

There are a lot of things I think the government should spend money on. Things that I support. For example, the government should spend money on building a military. However, I do not support the military as a means to "cure" unemployment. The US Department of Defense is the largest employer in the world. Most people don't realize that a good portion of the federal attempt to diminish unemployment relies on military hiring. (Which makes me wonder why leftists in this country are so dead set against the military. Heck, they should praise the government for keeping 3.2 million military employees.) Why hasn't Obama cut back the military? Because he knows as well as past presidents that cutting the military means increasing unemployment.

I think the government should spend money on funding science, unless the only science performed is to bolster political ideologies to foster more government programs and increased spending. For example, while there is plenty of evidence showing an increase in carbon dioxide and water vapor in our atmosphere, there is no empirical means to decide how the government should handle that increase. Science can answer many questions, but it cannot answer the whys and hows of political interaction. Any government-funded science that furthers ideological agenda - any agenda - steps across the boundary from freedom to power. Abusing science to support government power is erroneous at best, downright dangerous at worst.

I think that the government should support the arts. It should not, however, support only art from ideologues who couldn't spell the word aesthetic, let alone create something truly beautiful. There is no standard of the aesthetic that says that a plastic crucifix in a bottle of urine is art. It should never have been funded by the NEA.

I think the federal government should control interstate commerce, not build case law from a perverted interpretation of the Constitution. (This leads to abuses such as the concept of "rational basis review" which basically allows the court to accept or reject law merely by creating a definition of what it believes to be rational.)

I think the primary role of government is to protect the freedom of the individual, not promote the interests of special groups. The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution has been utterly broken. Identity politics broke it. Any group can now claim to be an oppressed class, and therefor ought to be granted special class privilege. This sort of abuse could never arise if the government still protected individuals, not classes of people.

I do not think that government has the authority, nor the right, to deprive an American citizen of his life without due process. Under the dangerous Patriot Act, Obama justified just such an action. (Washington Times) Does no one else see the slippery slope danger in Obama's justification? Would a Republican president be able to get away with such an action without a major outcry from the press? What happens when the next president comes into power?

I do not think that government has the authority, let alone the legitimacy, to redistribute wealth in the myriad entitlement schemes thought of by the welfare socialists in our country. This includes Social Security. I've paid into Social Security all of my life and fully expect that, when I reach the age where I could collect, the system will have collapsed under its own weight.

I do not think that government has the right to dictate what private businesses, and private citizens, must produce or buy. For this reason, I cannot ever support Obamacare. (Note: Obama does own up to the word Obamacare, even though the legislation was rammed down our throats by the Pelosi-Reed Congress. See The White House website.) Even the Chinese have figured out that the federal government cannot sustain a command economy. Why can't the American people figure that one out?

And lastly, I do not think that the federal government has any legitimacy or authority to promote its continued grab for power by employing tax and spend tactics. Power, from any party, from any ideology, is a dangerous thing and leads to corruption and waste. Our best shot at controlling it remains in limiting government power and spending. We mostly have a government of people. If we relinquish power to the government, we will indeed lose our freedom. I hope, as Abraham Lincoln hoped: "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."