PRICE OF ADMISSION

Well, the spring has brought a quick death to any drama left in the Presidential primaries, what's a self respecting Closet Philosopher to write about these days? They're still talking on Capitol Hill about Elian Gonzalez, but nope, I already did my best pun about aliens getting citizenship two months ago. There's that Confederate Flag flap still flapping, but that's not worth a whole column. Maybe I should write about going in for jury duty. I went in like a good boy and waited all day to get called; didn't even get inside a courtroom at all. Got a whole $8 in compensation for it and was burned for a vacation day because my company doesn't pay for jury duty. Damn, I think I just told the whole story! It was flat boring, but that's the price you pay for living here. At least they didn't take out taxes. Hmm, that's it! I'll write on one of the two great inevitables in life; not Death, but Taxes! It's April, after all, and last weekend I became a Turbo Tax kinda guy again. Everyone loves to complain about their yearly struggle with the tax codes. Fun, fun, fun!

Actually, I'm in the minority on that again. I don't like paying taxes, but I pay them without complaining too awfully much. Some, no, lots of people act like the very idea of taxes is an affront to their freedom though. Last I looked they were all driving on the community's streets, calling the fire department when they smelled smoke, collecting unemployment when they were out of work and looking for federal relief when a natural disaster strikes. No one likes footing the bill for these things, but everyone wants them. Well, get used to it. No one can be a true hermit these days; you are a member of the community and you use communal services. Like it or not you have an obligation to contribute to the common good. That's what government is supposed to be for, establishing the common good. It's just not very efficient at it.

So, the government's far from perfect--big revelation, right? But it ain't like the way Rush Limbaugh used to put it-- "Name one successful government program. Hmmmm? I'm waiting. Time's up!" A few years back Al Franken asked some conservatives to list their favorite successful government programs and got answers like the GI Bill, the national parks, Social Security, food and drug standards and the interstate highway system. There are lots more with varying degrees of success like Medicaid and The Environmental Protection Agency. Taxes have also paid for Head Start, student loans and other educational programs. Then there's foreign aid and farm subsidies, which are nice in theory but get applied very clumsily. You have to go pretty far down the list to get to welfare, and almost to the bottom to get to the arts endowments and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the conservatives' favorite whipping boy-programs. But in reality most of our taxes have gone to military programs since the end of World War II.

I wish I could selectively drop my taxes for the latest atomic submarine, or my personal favorite, the $2 billion per copy B-2 bomber. Remember when they said it was only going to cost $500 million apiece? And you thought inflation was under control! Actually I'm being unfair. It took a helluva lot of money to develop the B-2 and the $500 million price tag was calculated when they planned to spread that cost across a hundred copies of it. They aren't building that many, so the price per copy rose a lot. Regardless, I'm glad they cut back on these stealth turkeys. First of all, it isn't that stealthy if it's RAINING, so it kinda narrows how it can be used. And the bloody thing isn't even fast! It only flies at 600 miles an hour--the same as your average airliner. Big problem. Figure it out--we have fewer bases in the world so getting to a hot spot takes hours and hours of flying. This means that at least part of the way, it will be flying in DAYLIGHT. Forget radar, anyone in a ramshackle third-hand Mig can SEE the B-2 and SHOOT IT DOWN. Even at night, when it opens its bomb bay, it gets visible on radar for a bit. Remember how the Serbs were able to tag an F-117 last spring? Same problem. Stealth technology isn't quite as good as it's cracked up to be. It's certainly not worth $500 million a plane, let alone $2 billion. It won't be the last time taxpayer's money gets wasted though.

Speaking of wasting money, there's this really big budget item I almost forgot--interest payments on the National Debt. Bush & the Republicans want to reduce our taxes, but they seem to forget we're still a couple trillion in the hole. That's trillion. TWELVE ZEROS. Let's pay the damn thing down while we can. Stop playing to greed, Dubya! Your dad and Reagan were the ones who built up most of the debt anyway. I'm supposed to trust you to cut taxes and still pay this off somehow? Oh yeah, I almost forgot, your dad was the one who coined the phrase "voodoo economics," wasn't he? Sounds like he taught you a lot. Look, if you must cut taxes, why don't you try to take us all back to the good old days when corporate taxes made up the larger part of the pie and individual taxes were much lower?

Didn't know that? Over the decades corporate taxes have been steadily going downward while personal taxes have been going up. I wonder how that happened. I sure never wrote any letters asking Congress to lower the tax burden on businesses, did you? Actually it's almost the same difference. If business paid the main burden, they'd only have to charge you more for goods and services. But as individuals the rich can also weasel out through more tax loopholes than the average joe so I'm sure they were they ones who lobbied for it. Oh well, at least our taxes aren't stratospherically high like most of the European countries. Ours are just the price you pay for living in a great country.

You know what? Thinking about national debt, I just figured out the perfect solution to that Confederate Flag flap in South Carolina. Those reactionary rednecks who fly it over their capitol to "honor their Southern Heritage" must be signaling that The Confederate States of America is back in business, right? So they must be ready to pay for the obligations that come with that heritage--the old CSA national debt! Millions of dollars in unredeemed Confederate War bonds! Instead of boycotting South Carolina, the NAACP and others should buy up all the antique Confederate War Bonds they can find, then take them there and ASK FOR PAYMENT. With 135 years or so of interest, paying those bonds might make a tidy fund for the families of former slaves. Let's see if those rebel wannabes fly that icon of bigotry then!

Their paying would sure be better than the Federal Government paying out compensation for slavery. It's been suggested by some, but I can't get behind that. After all, the North already paid dearly in blood and treasure to win the Civil War and free the slaves. It's the Confederacy that should pay for slavery. Fat chance of that, but I'd settle for funding a decent public education system for all kids, no matter what their heritage.

Looks like my property tax assessment just arrived on top of everything else. No, no! I'm not complaining, just grinding my teeth a little.

You have tradeoffs for everything in life, it's the price of admission. You can have a lot of highs and lows like on a roller coaster or you can flatten it out until it's no more exciting than a merry go-round. Good luck trying to flatten it out completely. Enjoy the highs and don't take the lows too personally.

Me? Roller coaster, definitely, as soon as my tax refund comes. In fact, I'd better go back into the closet right now and make sure I still have that discount coupon for Magic Mountain. Thanks for reading and until next month the Closet is closed.


(C) 2000 Rusty Pipes

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OFFICIAL DISCLAIMER: The editors and Publisher of Cosmik Debris Magazine realize we just lost 90% of our readers from the southern half of the USA, but we were all off somewhere gettin' hammered on Jack Daniels and listening to CHARLIE Daniels really loud, so we weren't here to red-pen all that anti-South stuff out of the article. Or something like that.