Check Please

Tax season has officially begun.  W-2s had to be sent out by January 31^st.  The IRS began accepting e-filed returns on the 30^th.

Let the whining begin.  The weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  The woe is me that always comes when most people are asked to fulfill the responsibilities that correspond to the possession and exercise of rights.  Especially in a society that is all about, “What can you do for me?”

Ask not what your country can do for you.  Ask what you can do for your country.

This is taken from what is typically considered one of the greatest inauguration speeches, and one of the finest speeches ever given, period, and yet, this concept is so foreign to Americans today.  Today this would have so many screaming, “Socialist!  Communist!” even though most of those would have no idea what those words even mean.

When President Kennedy said them at the beginning of his term, he was rallying the country together following a contentious presidential race during the Cold War, and yet it was a time that was less divided that we now find ourselves, in many ways.  It was a time when we still had something that resembled a liberal base in America.  And, it was a time when, while people may not have liked it, they at least didn’t consistently shirk their responsibilities quite so much as they do now.

Can you imagine what FAUX News, Glen Beck or Rush Limbaugh would have to say if the POTUS were to use that line in a speech?  If he were to say that echoing Kennedy, it would be bad enough, but try to imagine the reaction, if Kennedy had never said it, and Obama were the first president to say it.  I can imagine drowning in a sea of the foam coming from their mouths.

One of the defining features of the shift to the right over the last 40 years is a decline in personal responsibility.  We see it in so many ways.  When Kennedy gave the aforementioned speech, the top marginal tax rate was 91%.  It had been since 1946.  Unlike modern conservatives, when the conservatives of the past took us to war, they actually paid for it instead of borrowing “against our children’s future” to borrow a phrase, and then blaming the black guy, oops, I mean the next guy.  You see, when we started to gear up for WWII, the tax rates started to go up.  I’ll spare you the full re-cap of the tax rates, as I’ve written on that previously, and you can read more about that here, if you would like.

The real point is this; it’s time to pay up.  We want the benefits of a society that includes the safety and benefits of a “civilized society” provided by decent roads (we’ll ignore the disintegrating infrastructure, for now), police and fire safety, public water, electricity, food inspections, courts, and the list goes on and on.  But, so many of us are looking to someone else to foot the bill.  Okay, so that’s not entirely unreasonable.  No one wants to pay more than their share, but if we’re going to live in this shared society, then we all have to be willing to pay at least our share.

It is just the same as jury duty.  If we want to have a functioning and reasonable jury system where, again to steal a phrase from the currently raging gun argument (I won’t call it a debate because that would imply more civility than most of it has), one is to be “judged by 12 rather than carried by 6”, then there has to be those 12 to serve.  Yet, the vast majority of people bitch and moan and look for every excuse possible to get out of jury duty if they receive the summons.  “Oh, I can’t do that!”  Really?  So, it’s just not important enough to you?  Granted, that too needs to be revised.

Of course, these things are tied together in another way.  That is, financially.  I really do understand the working stiff who can’t afford to take the day off of work, because his or her job isn’t going to pay them for not being there, and the jury pay is a ridiculous amount.  Typically, it isn’t even enough to pay for the parking, much less enough to make up for the loss of pay for going.  Unless you are fortunate enough to work for a company that does compensate for jury time, then that is a legitimate issue.  It is one that should be made up for by the state.  We can afford to pay our legislators, most of whom are worth millions, hundreds of thousands of dollars each year, but we can’t afford to compensate our jurors at even minimum wage for a job that is at least as important?  No, in part, we can’t because we do not have the money for it.  In part, we do not have the money for it because we do not collect sufficient taxes, and thus, we come back around to what is important.
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