Read My Lips: Taxes Aren't All Bad

People are always looking to define Americans. Depending on who you ask, we're dominators, spoiled, overly ethnocentric, impatient, etc. But I think there's one ethos that defines the American people more than any other.

We want to have our cake and eat it too.

We talk about saving the environment, but purchase gas-guzzling SUVs in record numbers. We lament the disappearance of the mom-and-pop store, but we're quick to spend the bulk of our paychecks at Wal-Mart and other big-box retailers. We say we want to lose weight, but we down fast food and junk food like there's no tomorrow. We complain about the lack of quality services and affordable healthcare, but we don't want to pay more taxes.

The last point is the one on which I'm going to focus. After all, we're a country that was founded in part because a significant number of powerful white males felt they were being overtaxed. Heck, if the Brits had laid off of the tea tax and stamp tax, Mount Rushmore might have a bust of Winston Churchill and we might be singing "God Save The Queen" before baseball games.

The American we-hate-taxes attitude is still prevalent today. Without question, we are the least-taxed industrialized nation in the world. Politicians who speak of tax cuts, tax rebates and/or tax credits always seem to be rewarded at the ballot box. One of the most famous broken campaign promises in our political history is the "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge by the elder President Bush who, by the way, raised taxes and didn't get re-elected.

I've been thinking a lot about the taxation issue because of what's been going on in my neck of the woods. There is a huge push to dissolve several of the local villages and towns (including the one in which I live) into their larger neighboring cities or towns. This push has been aided by our county executive, a pleasant, diminutive lady with whom I haven't had much to quarrel until now, who is advocating that we take a long, hard look at dissolution because it may solve many of the region's problems. There are even some in favor of dissolving one of the nearby counties into three of its neighbors.

There is only one legitimate benefit (if you want to call it a benefit) to dissolution: lower taxes. By consolidating municipal services like police and fire departments, money would be saved, expenses would be spread over a greater number of people and, thus, taxes would decrease. Which is true.

However, dissolution advocates are overlooking one major flaw in their plan: a decrease in the quality of services.

Most of the municipal services are utilized only when we need them. You don't call the fire department to tell them your house isn't on fire or that your cat is earth-bound. Most of us don't call the police unless we think the law is being broken. Few attend town hall meetings if they're happy with their local leaders. But, when you use those municipal services, you want a prompt and courteous response. Such a response is more difficult to obtain when budgets are slashed in the name of reducing taxes.

I think many of the people who spearhead movements like dissolution are the same ones who vote down anything they think will increase their property taxes. You know, the curmudgeons who think the local school facilities are just fine and, as a result, refuse to vote in favor of new building additions or new athletic fields because it would raise their taxes. Mind you, these are the same curmudgeons who complain that the kids do nothing but loiter and wreak havoc in the neighborhood, neglecting the fact that the school bond initiatives they voted down might've provided those same kids with Bunsen burners or computers or tubas or footballs that might engage them instead. The curmudgeons lead the charge, their followers often being the ignorant and/or the misinformed.

And then there's the thorny issue of universal healthcare. I love when people ask "how come virtually every country in the world but the US has healthcare for all its citizens?" It's because those people, on average, pay more taxes than we do...and you get what you pay for. It's that simple. The day we're willing to shell out more money to Uncle Sam is the day we'll have true universal healthcare in this country.

Of course, there are also opponents of universal health care who say it's akin to socialism, a word that might as well have made George Carlin's famed "Seven Dirty Words" list. There are already socialist aspects to our government, like unemployment insurance, social security and farm subsidies. The New Deal was essentially a socialist program (not pogrom) that helped get us out of The Great Depression. Yet, we haven't turned into the USSR or Nazi Germany.

So, the next time you complain about more taxes, look at the big picture. Where is that money going? Where would you be without it? When one looks at the big picture, a little taxation never hurt anybody.