Debts and Taxes

Our credit card debt just increased by nearly $3000. We now owe $25,209.96. Yikes.

We have our tax bill on April 15 to thank for this. Taxes can be a bit of a struggle for us, since my wife’s income comes from several self-employment ventures. You might gripe about the taxes deducted from your paycheck every week, but having to set aside the tax money yourself is no fun either. Also, many people don’t realize that the social security taxes deducted from a paycheck at an ordinary job represent only half of the taxes actually owed; the other half is paid by your employer. The self-employed person, on the other hand, has to pay the full 15% themselves.

Add it all together, and we really should be setting aside over 30% of what my wife earns to cover the taxes, but that is tough to do when you have a giant credit card debt monster to feed every month. Still, we did pretty well, saving about half of what we needed.

For the remaining three thousand dollars, we had to turn to the magic plastic. Fortunately, the credit card companies remain diligent in filling our mailbox with attractive low-interest deals. I borrowed the entire amount at a 5.99% interest rate that will last as long as the money is owed. Nevertheless, this adds another fifty dollars or so to our monthly minimum payment, squeezing us financially a bit more and making it ever harder to pay off the debt.

You might think that our tax woes would make me a strong supporter of George W. Bush’s $727 billion dollar tax cut, but you would be very wrong. I am vehemently opposed to it. Hell, I’d support a tax increase if we had a government that actually believed that government had a role in promoting a better society.

Unfortunately, we now have in power a government that doesn’t believe in governing. Its highest value is private property, minimally taxed and minimally regulated. It believes that society prospers best when it is ‘every person for themselves’, acting in their own interests and shouldering their own burdens. It believes that economic markets are self-regulating and will produce the greatest social good when government butts out.

I suppose this is a valid political theory, but it is not one I believe in. I especially do not agree with it as promoted by the current government in Washington. Bush and his crowd love policies that benefit what an article in The Nation refers to as the “haves and have mores.” Their philosophy seems to be to allow those with the most property—the wealthy and big business—do whatever they want and to hell with everyone else. A rising tide lifts all boats, they say. Unfortunately, most of us don't have boats, so we're left to tread water or drown.

What this has given us are corporate scandals and mismanagement, CEO pay that is absurdly out of proportion with both the results they produce and the pay of the people who work under them, and a gap between rich and poor that is the worst of the industrialized nations and growing worse. It has given us an under-protected environment, under-financed schools and libraries, and an under-maintained public infrastructure.

I do happen to believe in private property and in market economies, but I also believe in the social contract. Societies form governments because they recognize that there are some things too big, too important and too complicated to be left to the unruly jostling of individual effort and market forces. We form governments because we recognize that although life will always be unfair, with a little collective effort we can help smooth out some of the rough edges and make things better for everyone. We form governments because we understand that our quality of life has as much to do with our interdependence as a society as with our independence as individuals.

Bush wants to let me keep more of my tax money in exchange for letting his government concentrate on waging wars around the world rather than creating a better society at home. He wants to give me a couple of hundred bucks more a year in exchange for letting the rich pocket millions and for allowing corporations to have fewer regulations get in their way.

I don’t consider that he’s doing me any favors. I consider that his tax cuts cost me plenty. I consider the $1395.68 deducted each year from my paycheck for health insurance to be a tax, because our government is one of the few industrialized nations that won’t provide health care to its citizens. I consider the $1.60 I pay for a bus ride in my city to be a tax because our government prefers to slash mass transit funding. I consider much of the money I spent for college to have been a tax, since our government provides less subsidies for higher education than do many less wealthy nations.

We all pay hidden taxes every day thanks to the government’s withdrawal from the social contract. You pay more in tuition, more in insurance, more in healthcare. And don't forget the little things: that car repair after hitting a pothole costs you a hell of a lot more individually than the few cents per person in taxes it would cost to have public highway maintenance properly funded.

Well, if Bush cuts my taxes, I’ll take the money. And then I’ll tax it myself, continuing to donate to the Sierra Club, the ACLU, Amnesty International and other groups who oppose his policies. And I’ll donate some of it to political candidates who aren’t afraid to say that they will raise my taxes in order to promote the public good.

Damn. I’m $25,000 in debt, and I’m less greedy for tax cuts than people who have millions. What’s wrong with this picture?