Voluntarily Taxing My Patience
Some people have a way of rubbing me the wrong way. It only takes a sentence or two to set me off. Like these fools here in America that have latched onto a single word in a large document and continue to hammer away at this word like it was the magic key that will set them free.
From an e-mail:
> Social Security is voluntary. I've only started looking into this, but
> I do believe that, like the income tax, it is based on voluntary
> participation. Unfortunately, most of us get a SSN shortly after birth
> thanks to a program set up in hospitals. Once you're in the system, it
> is very hard to get out of it.
Saying that SS is voluntary like Taxes isn't really a great argument.
Most of the Get-out-of-taxes schemes seem to be based on the flawed
"voluntary" logic. In the real world those of us who don't want to be
felons next year, the taxes are "voluntary" only in the sense that we
are expected to calculate them and send them in ourselves. They aren't
voluntary in the sense that you can choose not to pay them. No rational
human alive or dead -- not even government employees =) -- would make a
tax voluntary and in the same document lay out fees and punishments
for non-payment of those "voluntary" taxes.
The only place "voluntary" is being impinged on these days in the
gov'nment's insistence on forcing you to pay it in advance out of
every check rather than at the end of the year like you should. You
are getting screwed out quite a bit of investment potential there.
I'm generally quite happy to pay much of my taxes. Every time I see
a Stealth Bomber swoop in over the Ohio at the KY Derby opening
fireworks and air show I think, "There is good money spent." Every
time I drive on I64 or I65 or I71 or I70 I think, "I'm damn glad this
isn't gravel" (well, except for just after winter when the potholes
appear. But then a month later when real Americans with real jobs
show up to fix em I'm pretty happy. I've worked with a road-crew
before. They earn every dime, that is shitty work. In fact, I don't
even mind seeing some of it go to artwork, even artwork that is
nothing more than pissing on religious idols since I know that is
just a drop in the art bucket (ewww, so to speak) and that good things
like horribly-horribly liberal NPR get cash in there too. At least
NPR isn't all poo jokes like this post is turning out.
Mind you, there is a great deal of fat to be cut and I'll happily
draw knives and flense away if only I get the cash back to spend
on my own needs.
If you've got time and money to spend researching, figure out how
to show Americans just how much we are wasting on crappy government
rather than tilting at windmills.
I sure hope I was mean enough there. Normally I worry that I flame a bit too hot in e-mail but this time I'm afraid I pulled the punches too much. Oh well.
©
