On April 15th I had a dream. In it, a haggard looking Uncle Sam emerges from a cloud of burning dollar bills and beckons toward three figures. They are, I see, the Vice President and two liberal journalists. Sam looks as if he hasn’t been getting much sleep lately and who can blame him. Sam waves a finger at each with a booming baritone voice and says “I want you….”. Each man salutes and cuts Sammy a check, their relief noticeable that this is all their needy Uncle required. Joe Biden pronounces them all patriots of the highest order and they walk off into the sunset to a chorus of fireworks and a musical score by John Phillips Sousa. I awoke in a cold sweat.
It was Biden, who, like a dream led the call on the campaign trail by pronouncing the paying of higher taxes to be a patriotic endeavor (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26771716/). As tax day neared, journalists like Paul Begala (http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/04/15/begala.taxes/index.html?eref=rss_topstories) and Alan Colmes (http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/2009/04/15/colmes_tea_party_tax_day/) joined the back slapping chorus chanting that paying taxes is patriotic and those who dare to question that wisdom are right wing nut jobs.
Paying taxes without comment makes you a patriot? That which is required under pain of imprisonment can hardly be our lofty standard for modern day patriotism, can it? The argument exemplifies the folly of our “participation medal” culture. You don’t get gold stars and a pat on the head for funding a bloated bureaucracy with a proverbial gun to your head. Say, if paying taxes is such a patriotic pleasure why don’t more nominees for cabinet positions try doing it? But I digress…
Begala is probably the most shrill faux patriot, criticizing the Bush administration and then stealing a page from their playbook. It is as if Begala took the age old Liberal refrain, “what about the children” and substituted a new noun. “George W. Bush and the Republicans cut taxes on the idle rich and put the screws to the working stiffs…How ‘bout protesting how little we give back to our Veterans.” As a working stiff and a Veteran who makes a decent enough living to qualify for AMT I know who put the screws to me. His initials weren’t GWB and the “illegal war” he was trying to fund was a bit east of Baghdad. Sometimes historical perspective is everything.
Casting stones at the Bush administration spending, while fun and generally correct, misses the point. It’s not some spending or some programs we are questioning anymore, it is all of them. Our Veterans receive shoddy treatment because government spending now encompasses not just the military and infrastructure, but every facet of American life. When you try to do everything you end up doing nothing well. We don’t need more spending but fewer programs on which to spend. Why do these people continually act as if there is one side to a balance sheet?
No Democrat or Republican in the last decade has seen a government program they didn’t like at least a little. At the end of a hard day in Washington, why get your hands dirty? Fixing problems is as easy as avoiding direct action, calling for more funding, cutting a check and hoping someone figures it out. I would prefer to keep my money and deploy it the best way I see fit. Not for politicians to throw at what is popular and expedient.
Last year the Bidens reported after tax income of $183,315. They paid $46,952 in federal taxes, $11,164 in Delaware and donated $1,885, about 1%, to charity. Is there any question who Joe feels is better at solving problems like hunger or homelessness? Support the grass roots efforts? Nah, give it to my Uncle Sam-he’ll figure out what is best. It reminds me of a joke I heard around April 15th. A bedraggled man knocks on the door of the Vice Presidential mansion. Joe Biden answer the door in his bathrobe and his hair is perfect. The man asks him for a donation to a local shelter for the needy. Joe unfurls an American flag from his pocket as the Star Spangled banner plays in the background. “Sorry pal….I gave at the office.”
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