I'm a good liberal and I don't mind paying my taxes.
Taxes are a way of all of us putting our money together to serve the public good in ways that the private sector can't or won't do.
I just wrote a check for $10,000 to send to the IRS.
I also paid $1,200 in state taxes today.
$11,200 is a LOT of money to me.
So today I am really really angry.
Not angry like the t-potty folks who are ranting today because they think the majority of their tax dollars are used to put roofs over black heads or food in brown babies' stomachs.
Not angry like the peace activists who wish they could stop their tax dollars from funding war.
I'm angry, almost to the point of tears today, thinking about how hard it is for me to write this check and wipe out my special savings account (where I sock away money all year to cover my taxes)...
...when there are people who make ten times my salary who pay no taxes at all.
...when there are people who make 100 times and a thousand times my salary who pay NO taxes at all.
...when there are companies with profits that are ten thousand times (and more) of my salary who pay NO taxes AT ALL.
They have ways to hide money overseas that I can't take advantage of.
They use loopholes I can't take advantage of. (I do get one big loophole for which I am extremely grateful, but which may close if some people get their way.)
Huge profitable companies like Boeing and Verizon and Rupert Murdoch's News Corp are not writing a big check today. They are getting money back with an effective NEGATIVE tax rate.
Even the wealthy who are paying taxes pay a much lower effective tax rate than I do.
I pay both halves of the FICA on my whole income, and they pay nothing on the millions or billions they make above $118,500.
So yeah, I am upset today about paying my taxes, but not for the Republicon reasons.
It makes me equal parts angry, frustrated and tearful that there are people who make $11,200 in an HOUR who are filing for REFUNDS today.
There are people who casually spend that much on a dress or a pocketbook who are filing for REFUNDS today.
And I am equally angry, frustrated and tearful that so many other folks, including t-potty voters, direct their tax anger toward the so-called "undeserving poor" rather than toward military waste, corporate welfare and the "undeserving wealthy".