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6.09.2004
Tax Relief Falls Through Windshield (link) PAOLI, Okla.-- A chunk of concrete from a bridge over Interstate 35 smashed through the windshield of a car on Tuesday, killing an Irving, Texas, woman. Here I am sitting around watching the local news, something I rarely do, and thinking that I don't want to write anything just right now, when I hear about this story. A women gets killed when a chunk of concrete falls onto her car. The local newshead informs us that $200 million is budgeted for next year's transportation when there is a need for $5 billion for overall bridge repair. We keep falling further behind. Its like when someone calls into a financial advice show to ask whether they should blow a chunk of their inheritance on a Big Screen TV when they owe twenty grand in credit card debt. No stupid, pay off your debts. PAY YOUR BILLS before you play. You spent that money already. There is a problem when we are $5 billion behind on our bridge maintenance. Somebody is not doing their job. Our civil servants are too busy trying to give back tax money to notice that our freaking transportation system is falling apart. Maybe some of you right wingers can let me know whether being a conservative means they'll get the freaking bridges fixed so they don't freaking kill people? I suspect not... Shrink gubmint. Lower taxes. Government does things for us. Do we need that tattooed backwards on our foreheads? Sure its not the end all be all of fixing all our problems. But we're talking basic stuff here. Bridges. Its not some grand social engineering plan. Its cars and trucks moving from point A to Point B. Can we at least do that right? Please? As much as it might pain some to hear this but it takes money to do useful things like build new roads, put in new infrastructure... ... and to keep bridges from crushing people! I'll give my share so I don't have to live in mortal terror of falling concrete. UPDATE: I read this in Mother Jones the other day and it cracked me up. His Own Private Kingdom I am an independent guy. I take a lot of pride in doing for myself, like my dad and my granddad before me, and I don't need any bloated, out-of-control government holding my hand. First off, let me state that I hate bureaucracy more than just about anything else. At various points in my life I've had to fill out large amounts of paperwork and each time I would rant and rave about the sheer ridiculousness of it all. There are types of people that actually LIKE filling out their name on each page and gathering references and putting nicely folded pieces of paper in envelopes. That person is not me. I don't even like making phone calls to people. I feel I am pretty independent, I have little patience for waiting on other people. It drives me nuts when my fate rests on the competence of another. That being said. I recognize that my independence is reliant on having access to the tools I need. I neither have the time or the patience to build or maintain the infrastructure that I rely on every day. I appreceite that I belong to a collective group of people that make it possible for me, as an individual to pursue my own way of life. I understand that some people feel forced to pay taxes for services that they don't want. I sympathize. Just yesterday I was explaining to the co-worker that I could probably save money with a service like Netflix rather than going to the video store as often as I do. But, I explained, paying for what I want when I want it allows me to cut that expense out of my budget anytime that I need to free up some cash. If I had a service that wouldn't happen. I might have other expenses other than video rentals that need attention, but *zap* there goes my money to a service. However, I have come to realize that there are some things that we all benefit from that nobody wants to pay for. The benefits we receive from certain government services are sometimes so ethereal that we think "Damn, I don't need that, why do I have to pay for it?" I put bridge building and road construction in that category. Living in Oklahoma I've had more than my fair share of pay-road experiences. I've tried to imagine what a pay-as-you-go road system would look like and each time I think about it, it scares me. A revealing story: One I might have told here once before.. but nevertheless. My friend John and I were in a high school garage band together. Together with our other friend Pat and various other "occasionals" we would rock on cover songs or engage in freeform improvisational "jams". The garage we used was really a spare game room that was used by the rest of John's family as well. So it was that we had to set up and clean up before and after each practice. This involved setting up the drums, bringing in the amps, running to the church to "borrow" their microphones for a few hours and sometimes even tuning our guitars. One day I forgot some cables back at my house. They were essential to running the PA system for our vocals so we had to make the ten minute drive back to my house. During that trip John felt it was a good time to unload his frustrations. "You and Pat just let me do all the work"... blah blah blah.. "Just goofing around..." "I did.." this this and this "What did you do?" I told him. John's a smart guy. After I told him what I had done to get set up for the practice, he thought about it for a second and realized that he hadn't actually seen me do any of it but that I had done it anyways. Whether he saw me or not didn't change that fact, but by not seeing it happen it didn't count in his own mind. He saw what he was doing and not what everyone else was doing. We are all like that. If you were to take a survey in a workplace you would find that people always rate themselves as valuable and hardworking but will rate "other people" as slackers or incompetent. Its hard to be objective about your own worth or contribution. But we can't all be the smartest, best people on the face of the Earth. The reflexive anti-government attitude originates from our own sense of self importance. We don't need anything. We are the sole source of our own success. That feels good. Other people are holding us back. "If they would just get out of my way then I would be a giant." I find it amazing that even after years and years of this awful system of taxes and government that we are still one of the most successful nations ever. It must be in spite of it all. If we would just tear it all down.. "watch us go!" I suspect though that the real test of our system will come when we run out of free space to expand. |
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