We all dislike attempts to increase taxes; they have become the cuss word of the early twenty-first century. “No new taxes” is the battle cry of the Tea Party. Bush (41) lost to
Most of us will easily define a tax as anything the government collects is a tax. We have income tax, sales tax, excise tax, gasoline tax, property tax, cigarette tax, commercial motor vehicle tax, commercial rent tax, hotel room occupancy tax, utility tax, and the list could continue ad nauseum. We can all agree there are numerous taxes for activities we witness everyday. They fall into three basic categories. Taxes people pay, taxes businesses pay, and those other taxes. I am going to discuss a non-apparent tax: a tax we don’t call a tax, one we gladly pay: an entertainment tax.
Do you know that we spend a trillion dollars on entertainment? How much is that? More than we spend on health care; more than we spend on telecommunications; more than we spend on general government! A trillion dollars would pay for a lot of teachers and police. Entertainment can be seen as a non-value added activity. So Boyonce quits with her $80,000,000 yearly income, a few dancers and musicians move on to another backup position. But what about a company like Schwinn which made the same amount of money? If they quit, the number of people displaced is incredible.
How much does your child’s teacher earn? Is it sufficient to pay for the spark your child might grasp if the wages were higher, and the teaching force was not the secondary students at the university? How much do teachers earn? $50k is the mean. How much does the policeman or fireman earn? The same, not nearly enough to save my life, or yours.
We have dirtied the term taxes. It is a swear word on the tongues of the conservative right. It is spit at each of us as if we are being saved from something. What we are saved from in the lack of teachers, the lack of police, and the lack of people to guard against the elite thievery going on in this country.
As in the middle ages when people were largely illiterate the elite were able to keep the greater populace as serfs by forbidding their education. Allow the myths and fears to control them, and add the tax collector. Unfortunately we still have the bravado of ignorance in some communities.
We willingly pay for music, movies, sporting events. These items are consuming an ever greater portion of our discretionary money. The real value-added people in our society: the machinist, the carpenter, the plumber, the fireman, and the teacher are being squeezed to lower wages, with fewer people to do more work.
The illusion that taxes are somehow ill-gotten gains by the government. is bunk Taxes are the cost of the highway system, justice system, educational system, and the way of life we have carved out of this land. We have allowed the elite to hoodwink us into a belief system that taxes are evil, unnecessary, and even wrong. “...[O]f the people, by the people, and for the people...” is a shared adventure. We all throw money into the pot as to our ability to pay for the cop, the teacher, and the fireman to do the job we as a society need.
easy enough to find out how much is collected in taxes...not so easy to find out exactly how it is spent and why our country is in such sad shape...
ReplyDeleteIMHO we are in bad shape due to the large expenditure for two wars, and not taxing to pay for it, just as what happened during Viet Nam when Johnson didn't raise taxes, and Carter took the brunt with inflation and debt. Not until the sharp up-tic in the economy during Clinton did we have a positive, well thought-out manner to pay off our national debt. George W Bush and the Republican Congress lead us into deep debt by not raising taxes. Deregulation of the banks and the lack of oversite by a regulatory agency added to the problems with credit default swaps and the no-income mortgage loans.
ReplyDeleteThe idea that this debt is the result of runaway contracts, and fraudulent practices is bunk and another edition of this blog.
Ah yes taxes. Not only do people give up money for tickets to be ‘entertained’, their local / state governments cut deals with the entertainment industry, e.g. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHA, etc… wherein they aren’t required to pay property taxes and the income they get for their entertainment is also taxed differently, to the advantage of the franchise owners. So, how do all these emporia get paid for, why by increasing taxes on the people who ‘benefit’ from them, not only directly through exorbitant ticket prices but indirectly through deterioration of infrastructure which goes begging for lack of tax monies needed to build, upgrade and maintain it.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of, ‘…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…’ has become so distorted that the only apparent goal / purpose is the pursuit of happiness through ‘entertainment’. Other countries’ people like to be entertained also, however, it isn’t the sole reason for existence as it seems to be for so many people in this country. And, in addition to starving institutions such as public education of tax support, the sleazebag faction of the right wing nut-jobs are now on the march to take away the right of teachers, police, EMTs, et.al. to collective bargaining. Give this trend another twenty years and this country will be genuine hell hole with the upper two percent of the population controlling everything and the remaining 98% fighting tooth and nail for every little crumb they can get their hands on. Now that’s entertainment!