The “T” Word

Sure they’re annoying, but they’re a necessary inconvenience. They pay for so many of the things that we just take for granted, like functioning infrastructure, utilities, and public services. In essence, they bind our society together.

Of course these resources need not be provided by the government, they could come from private enterprise. In that way, we wouldn’t have to pay any taxes and still get to enjoy all the same conveniences. However, there is still no free lunch. Would you rather have an elected official in charge of these services, someone who must please the people in order to be re-elected, or a corporate executive, someone who only needs to ensure their company’s annual profits stays in the green to keep their job? Well, the former has to listen to your opinion and provide all the services that you demand without charging you too much for it, while the latter can choose to provide whatever services they deem profitable at a price point that they see fit. Which of these options puts the consumer in charge?

And that’s what we have in this country, a consumer-based economy, always have and probably always will. Don’t get me wrong; having a robust private sector is the key to innovation within the market. Refining processes, making new inventions, and offering goods at a lower price, all of these are examples in which the private sector shines. However, in situations where pulling off an operation would be too complicated for the private sector, like building a road, or the consumer is treated like a product, like in healthcare or education, it’s in our best interests to leave things up to the government.

Even in the classical ideal of a purely “night-watchman” state in which the only two services provided are a military and a police force, we would have to pay taxes. Our military is the largest in the world and the amount we spend on our military alone is roughly equal to what the entire rest of the world pays on its militaries combined. Likewise, our criminal justice system is enormous, spanning over fifty thousand individual agencies. Just to keep these two leviathans, we’d have to fork over some serious cash (and that doesn’t even factor Social Security into the equation).

So no matter what, there are going to be taxes, but why does that matter? Nobody’s going destitute just trying to pay off their taxes. The money’s (usually) going to a good cause. A lot of these programs that taxes pay for are the glue that hold our society together, so really it’s patriotic to pay taxes. We need to clear up this superstition that the “t” word is something only communists use because they hate freedom, and instead call it what it is, civic responsibility. Grow up, people.