Post Election Fun
Nov. 6th, 2002 02:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluegargantuaOh yeah...
OK, so the GOP has a slim majority in the Senate/Congress. So look forward to another two years of complete gridlock. Of course, if Dems continue to be as spineless as they've been over the past 2 years, we can look forward to all sorts of bizzare tunes as Bush fiddles while America burns.
Not that there's really all that much difference between Dems and GOPs. I've discussed this elsewhere so I'm not going to rehash it all that much.
I keep forgetting how incredibly conservative most of the country is (even though I'm from there) simply because of the people I hang out with. Which is not to say that all of my friends are hippie-pagan-poly-gamers. Some of them are really big on gun ownership or other conservative causes. And it's difficult to say how they would approach foreign policy or large-scale economic pictures. But in general, I think that they've got a much better handle on stuff whether they see themselves as Dems, Reps, Greens, Libs, or Loony Party.
In Massachusetts itself, the "Abolish Income Tax" almost won out. "English Immersion" did win and "Clean Elections" lost in a landslide. The English Immersion...well, I'm not a teacher, but it seems like it might be very difficult to adjust if I was just thrown into a foreign language school. I don't know enough about that issue to say. The Clean Elections law was apparently a bit under-defined on the ballot and if you don't want income tax, then you wouldn't want clean elections. So that's understandable if very sad (yeah, I know, first amendment rights, but even a marketplace of ideas can have monopolies).
But...OK people of MA, follow me here:
If there is no Income Tax, then the state government (already in shaky financial straits) will go into a tailspin. You hate the increase in tolls on the Pike? You better get ready to pay through the nose for everything the government could possibly provide. You want good roads and schools? Won't get them now -- no money. Social spending has been slashed to the bone -- now it would disappear. Your young and elderly will be out freezing on the streets. Not that you care about the young...they don't vote.
The point, is that the government does a lot of stuff that you really don't even think about because it's always there -- and it gets paid for out of income tax (and other taxes, but income is a big one). Many of these services are open to the public and could be charged for (libraries, roads, schools, etc.) but that would make it impossible for poorer sections of the population to use them. How can a poor person change their state if they can't get education? Or drive down the street to get to where they're going? And many services are a safety net for when you get hurt or laid off. People who need these services couldn't pay for them anyway. Are *you* going to play Mother Teresa and go help these people? No, you won't. It's not that you're greedy or selfish (OK, maybe you do enjoy kicking the homeless), but simple mass empathy. We care about what happens to us and the people we love and....that's about it. It's just a human inability to love everyone in the world.
No one likes taxes, but that's what makes our government function. Without them, we can't pay for stuff. Consider taxes to be the price you have to pay in order to have a government. Every April 15th, you pay on your yearly installment for life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. You may be really unhappy with the way the money is spent and you may wish that we would spend more or less money, but in the end, you still have to cough up some dough. It is, in a very real sense, a service or duty to your country. Sure, we aren't asking you to step out into a war zone or police the town or fight fires -- we ask you to pay for the people and equipment we need to do that.
So complain about your taxes. Work to change how they're collected and spent. But pay them.
OK, so the GOP has a slim majority in the Senate/Congress. So look forward to another two years of complete gridlock. Of course, if Dems continue to be as spineless as they've been over the past 2 years, we can look forward to all sorts of bizzare tunes as Bush fiddles while America burns.
Not that there's really all that much difference between Dems and GOPs. I've discussed this elsewhere so I'm not going to rehash it all that much.
I keep forgetting how incredibly conservative most of the country is (even though I'm from there) simply because of the people I hang out with. Which is not to say that all of my friends are hippie-pagan-poly-gamers. Some of them are really big on gun ownership or other conservative causes. And it's difficult to say how they would approach foreign policy or large-scale economic pictures. But in general, I think that they've got a much better handle on stuff whether they see themselves as Dems, Reps, Greens, Libs, or Loony Party.
In Massachusetts itself, the "Abolish Income Tax" almost won out. "English Immersion" did win and "Clean Elections" lost in a landslide. The English Immersion...well, I'm not a teacher, but it seems like it might be very difficult to adjust if I was just thrown into a foreign language school. I don't know enough about that issue to say. The Clean Elections law was apparently a bit under-defined on the ballot and if you don't want income tax, then you wouldn't want clean elections. So that's understandable if very sad (yeah, I know, first amendment rights, but even a marketplace of ideas can have monopolies).
But...OK people of MA, follow me here:
If there is no Income Tax, then the state government (already in shaky financial straits) will go into a tailspin. You hate the increase in tolls on the Pike? You better get ready to pay through the nose for everything the government could possibly provide. You want good roads and schools? Won't get them now -- no money. Social spending has been slashed to the bone -- now it would disappear. Your young and elderly will be out freezing on the streets. Not that you care about the young...they don't vote.
The point, is that the government does a lot of stuff that you really don't even think about because it's always there -- and it gets paid for out of income tax (and other taxes, but income is a big one). Many of these services are open to the public and could be charged for (libraries, roads, schools, etc.) but that would make it impossible for poorer sections of the population to use them. How can a poor person change their state if they can't get education? Or drive down the street to get to where they're going? And many services are a safety net for when you get hurt or laid off. People who need these services couldn't pay for them anyway. Are *you* going to play Mother Teresa and go help these people? No, you won't. It's not that you're greedy or selfish (OK, maybe you do enjoy kicking the homeless), but simple mass empathy. We care about what happens to us and the people we love and....that's about it. It's just a human inability to love everyone in the world.
No one likes taxes, but that's what makes our government function. Without them, we can't pay for stuff. Consider taxes to be the price you have to pay in order to have a government. Every April 15th, you pay on your yearly installment for life, liberty and the persuit of happiness. You may be really unhappy with the way the money is spent and you may wish that we would spend more or less money, but in the end, you still have to cough up some dough. It is, in a very real sense, a service or duty to your country. Sure, we aren't asking you to step out into a war zone or police the town or fight fires -- we ask you to pay for the people and equipment we need to do that.
So complain about your taxes. Work to change how they're collected and spent. But pay them.
