Thoughts on Taxpayer Day

OK, obviously I'm hugely biased, but please indulge a Dolberry rant here. Last year, I payed roughly $10K in Federal income taxes. I feel like I get quite a few tangible benefits from this outlay, including but not limited to:

1) having the privilege in a country that does the right thing and provides health care and assistance to the elderly and others who cannot afford it (roughly 2K of my money)

2) getting to live in a country that is safe from outside interference & one that has the ability to promote better living conditions worldwide via an excellent military (roughly 2K of my money)

3) being part of an effort to do what I believe to be the moral obligation to provide financial assistance to the poor, elderly, and unemployed via Social Security ... and theoretically this assistance will be made available to me when I reach a certain age (roughly 2K of my money)

And then for $4,000 dollars I get everything else the Federal government does (in descending priority order): accurate weather forecasts and warnings, increasingly clean air to breathe, supporting local/State education efforts, safe roads and skies to travel, beautiful parks to visit, exploring space, supporting scientific research, assistance to disaster areas, keeping criminals off the street, etc., etc., etc.

There are not many things that Dolberry spends money on that return that sort of value:

We spent over $4,000 dollars on insurance (car, home, health) ... when we had no wrecks, fires, or major illnesses. This was a complete waste of money.

We donated roughly $4,000 dollars & while I feel very good about where we put that money, I'm not sure that money created more "good" than what our taxes did.

We spent about $7,000 dollars to educate APD. He's getting marginally smarter, so we'll call that a decent investment. When he becomes a successful golf course architect and builds us that house on the 17th green then I'll be feeling even better about that one.

We spent $129 dollars on Guitar Hero. Easily the best value-to-expense ratio for the year. I kicked Isaac Miconi's butt this weekend ... & almost kicked Gracie's ... until she narrowly avoided it at the last second ... w/ an extreme amount of luck.

We gave a ton of money (~ $9,500) to a bank to repay a loan to live in our house. Over the life of the loan we will pay for our house something like two times over in interest. I'm grateful to live in a house, but the interest we all pay on these things is ridiculous.

We spent roughly $4,000 on vacations. Wish we could spend more on this.

We spent about $1,000 dollars to keep our car running. Another $1,000 to keep hot water flowing out of our faucets. An outrageous amount of money to feed, shelter, & care for our dog (who i think returns the investment w/ how happy she gets when I come home). And I'm afraid to even guess at how much money I flat out wasted on temporary pleasures or some other foolishness.

I spent $14 for the new House of Heroes CD. You should too!

Yes, there are wasteful Federal government programs. No, I don't agree w/ everything the Federal government supports. Yes, we should do everything we can to make all levels of government as efficient as possible. The way to do that is to engage in honest, open discussions about how we spend our money. Vote for representatives who share your values and respect the rights of others to do the same. If you want to posture w/ tea bags and what not, that's fine. Maybe that can kickstart more dialogue. But incendiary dialogue about revolutions and secession, and whatnot exposes a certain lack or realism and shallowness ... if you ask me (which i don't think you did, so sorry for going on like that).



I respect the right of others to see this differently.