Government spends my money better than I can

Today I gave our 2010 tax info to our CPA. In a few weeks we'll learn how much we owe the federal and Oregon governments.

My wife and I won't be thrilled with writing out the checks, but deep down we're pleased to do our part to "promote the general welfare" -- one of the six goals our founding fathers set out in the preamble to the United States Constitution.

See, Tea Party types, your interpretation of what it means to be a proud American is historically twisted. Cutting taxes isn't mentioned in the preamble. But promoting the general welfare is.

And how is that done?

By voters electing representatives who will decide how best to spend money raised through taxation. For example, last year our duly elected Congresspeople chose to pass a groundbreaking health care reform law that will bring tens of millions of people into the health insurance system.

That's great. It's the much-needed and democratically-determined law of the land.

My wife and I are happy to have some of our money go to fund implementation of the reforms. We're similarly pleased to know that our taxes are going to help cure the sick, educate children, provide food to the poor, and aid poverty-stricken nations where countless people die needlessly.

Among the crazy things I hear coming out of the mouths of right-wingers these days, one of the craziest is "Citizens can spend their money more wisely than the government can."

Huh? Have these people ever gone to a mall and watched what shoppers buy? Much of the time, crap.

Stuff that will used for a short time, then discarded. Stuff that the buyers don't really need, but get an urge for, so they whip out a credit card. But even if these goods fulfill some individualistic desires, they are very minimally (if at all) "promoting the general welfare."

Almost everybody is selfish, and I certainly include myself in everybody. Left to my own devices, I donate some money to charity and I volunteer to help other people. However, government is needed to do what we self-centered humans aren't willing or able to do on our own: genuinely promote the general welfare.

Groups usually make better social policy decisions than individuals can. That's why dictatorships fail and democracies thrive. That's why corporations have a board of directors rather than a solitary CEO.

When people get together and seriously ponder what's needed to make their community better, a wiser outcome will result than if each person acted on his or her own. Pooling resources to support a shared goal is how our country built the interstate highway system, went to the moon, conquered polio, won several world wars, and accomplished so much else.

By definition, a democracy will promote the general welfare. That is, if legislators and leaders are freely elected by informed voters, the resulting laws/policies should reflect what the citizenry desires. If not, the next election will restore balance to the system.

So there's no such thing as "having our country taken away from us," as so many Tea Party types have been screaming. They simply don't like what democracy has wrought, and how the general welfare is being promoted.

Everyone, from the most radical conservative to the most progressive liberal, should do their best to smile while they're preparing their tax returns and paying their taxes. Yes, I know it's difficult. Last night, when our dining room table was covered with financial papers and my calculator was heating up from overuse, I wasn't dancing with joy.

But as I was driving to our CPA's office this afternoon and listened to a woman who called in to a talk radio show, I felt really good about where our taxes are going.

"I have a serious disease that requires surgery every couple of years to remove growths inside my body," she told the host. "I'd be dead if it weren't for Medicaid." That's just one specific story about what it means to promote the general welfare. There are countless others.

Thanks to taxes. Glorious, wonderful, patriotic taxes.

 

 

Comments

[Millie]

I am not a tea partier and have never been to a rally, but it doesn't seem to me that those types want to get rid of government altogether. This is just how whining liberals spin the whining of the conservatives.

Seems to me tea partiers just want to get government under control, get spending under control, a lean mean government machine that lives within its means. They are sick of corruption and waste. Programs that there is no money to fund. That doesn't mean they don't support well-managed safety nets for those having hard times, or roads, or schools, or law enforcement, or a strong defense. But the system needs to be run like a business, not like a free candy warehouse where everyone thinks they can dig in and take what they want, abuse it and then complain when they get fat, ugly and sick.

You are crazy if you think the government spends money wisely..naive at best, stupid at worst, with all due respect. It is government policy, a corrupt congress, and failure of government oversight over the securities and mortgage industries, corporations, healthcare, insurance companies, etc. that has ruined the US. Waste is rampant and we are throwing good money after bad.

Like the irresponsible consumer the government goes out and buys stuff it doesn't need on credit, overspends its limits and then bellyaches for more taxes to pay for their irresponsibility or borrows money via bonds it can't pay back.

You have faith in government. Well I say we need it, but it needs to be run right. The other day some guys were painting lines at an intersection. There were nine of them just standing around and the job could have been done by two or three at the most. Government can get away with this, but a business will go broke functioning this inefficiently and will fail. The government should be out of business, and soon will be, but it can create bonds, raise taxes and print money to cover their asses. And some people want more from government? Who/how will it be paid for? Foreign creditiors? Future generations who will be unable to produce the wealth to pay it back due to dwindling resources and a stressed global climate? Dream on and descend into destitution.

I like the Constitution, but not the monstosity it has inadvertantly spawned. I have no answers except to identify waste and remove it. Remove earmarks from the legislative process and fire people whose departments go into the red. Develop an electoral system where candidates aren't dependent on money from and sold out to special interests and mega corporations. The entire congress and most state legislatures are bought and paid for. This needs to change, but the very people who could change it are the crooks who benefit from the status quo. Throw the bums out.

There will never be a perfect system, but maybe we can get one that tilts in favor of fiscal responsibility and the public good with just a tad of corruption to keep things interesting and give the talking heads something to yak about.

I'm not optimistic. There needs to be a paradigm change in values and consciousness, a quantum leap into a new vision that makes the old one wither away into an unfortunate footnote in history.

[DJ]

C'mon, Brian. You know YOU'RE more responsible spending YOUR money than Government will ever be spending SOMEONE ELSE'S money.

Government is bigger than ever, and taxpayers are more dissatisfied than ever with government. National debt is expanding exponentially, with 40 cents of every dollar borrowed - nearly a trillion so far from China alone. Nearly every state is broke, with many of them researching whether there is a legal path for a state to declare bankruptcy.

Is that any way to promote the general welfare? I think not. To condone the way today's bloated and out of control government operates by somehow giving it the blessing of our founding fathers and their intent for the US Constitution is truly one of the more "bat-shit crazy" rewritings of history ever penned.

[Blogger Brian]

DJ, wow. So you don't want Americans to pay for the military, medical research, health care for veterans and the poor, AIDS prevention in Africa, and all the other good things that taxes provide -- and wouldn't ever be offered by individuals acting unilaterally.

All I can say is, wow. That's not an America most people want to live in. Which is why the Tea Party always will be a small minority of voters. Thank goodness.

[Clark J.]

Far left liberals are frustrated because their vision and agenda is not supported by most americans. 'Change you can believe in' is not happening because it can't, even if people wanted it to. There is no money. Every dollar the government spends is not real. It is either printed by the Fed or owed to a creditor.

Liberals lash out at people like tea party'ers who simply want sane financial policy, less government intrusion and corruption. This does not mean that TP'ers want people starving in the streets and no roads to drive on. People who think that don't get it and are caught up in irrational emotion blinded by ideology. Balancing the books is not crazy.

Socialism goes over a little easier in Europe because they are used to authoritarian rule, monarchies and tyrants telling them what to do.

People came to america for independence from all that and the freedom to do their own thing. Heavy government intrusion goes against the grain of most americans.

[DJ]

Brian, if government spending is not brought under control the goose laying the golden eggs is as good as dead.

Then there will be no way to pay for the military, medical research, health care for veterans and the poor, AIDS prevention in Africa, and all the other good things that taxes provide.

All I can say is, wow. That's not an America most people want to live in. Thank goodness.

[Blogger Brian]

DJ, the vast majority of federal government spending is on the military, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. (But Social Security is well funded for several decades.)

Funny, I haven't seen any efforts by the Republicans to slash the programs that mostly create the deficit.

Until that happens, I won't believe they're serious about cutting the deficit -- just on eliminating programs that help regular people, rather than corporations.

[DJ]

Careful, Brian, that last comment sounds a bit like Ron and Rand Paul talking ;)

[Ron Gardner]

Let's see..Big MoFo Bro has a deficit of about 14 Trillion Bucks--and I have a surplus of about 3 million bucks. Gee, I wonnder who spends and manages money better. LOL.

If Big MoFo Bro didn't have its own private, unaudited, non-government "Federal" Reserve to print (actually conterfeit) trillion of dollars of fiat currency backed by nothing, Big Mof Fo Bro would go bankrupt and default, rendering our currency kaput. Instead,Big MoFo Bro, in cahoots with the Federal Reserve, steals from the Amercian people by creating money out of thin air, thereby debasing the dollar, which eventually will be worth...the paper it's printed on.

There is an appropriate term for the (wealth-transference, or "money stealing")_politics that Brian pushes--"liberal fascism." I, on the other hand, a former (misguided)UC San Diego student of the renowned neo-Marxist Herbert Marcuse, now am a big fan of Thomas Jefferson. And Jefferson said it best: "The government that governs least, governs best."