Taxes: Why I Don’t Mind Paying Them.

It seems like everyone has something to complain about in regards to taxes. It’s a pain to pay them, we shouldn’t have to, my tax refund isn’t big enough, etc etc etc.

I don’t mind paying taxes–no, really. Look at everything local, state, and the national government does with our tax money.

My taxes allow the government to allow me to take out loans to pay for my schooling; something no bank would do-give thousands of dollars to a seventeen year old woman? Pshh, silliness! The government banks on the idea that higher education will increase my productivity to society, and thus, my ability to pay them back. The bank loans solely on my ability to pay them back, with a lot of interest.

My taxes allow the government to fund food stamps. Mere dollars are taken out of my paycheck, and cents on the dollar out of my purchases , and I’m helping to feed thousands of people.

Iroquois Park, in Louisville, KY, gives residents a place to hike, bike, play, and enjoy Mother Nature. All paid for by our tax dollars.

My taxes pay for roads, for the government to oversee and regulate public services, our services members: students, active, and retired.

In paying my taxes, I’m giving back to a society that gives to me. I have clean air, relatively cheap tuition, roads and sidewalks to use, police to keep me safe, EMS to come to my rescue when I have a[nother] seizure in public, and many other things that I’m probably taking for granted.

It’s easy to take for granted the things that taxes pay for when we’ve never lived a life without them.

Stop and think for a minute–could we live the same lives if we kept our tax money and had nothing that those taxes pay for? No. We function as a community, a society. We live a life of relative comfort because of this. We are individuals, but we function as part of a group. I take care of me and mine, plus a whole lot of others, too, by paying taxes.

As a community, we can’t decide who to help, who deserves to benefit from the things taxes give us, or who should pay more or less depending on some arbitrary judgment of “goodness” or “worthiness.” Our neighborhoods are communities which are part of the city’s community, which is part of the state’s community, which is part of the nation’s community. Each individual is one of many, and unless we pool our resources, very few of us will succeed. Very few. Those who currently do not need “help” cannot stand in judgment of those who do. We have pooled our resources for a reason–because we are all equal. We are all equal, we are different, but the same, and we are part of the same community.

We think a lot about how taxes hurt; but how do they help?

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