Column:Taxes punish rich Americans by Alex Hughes, Daily Lobo columnist

I hate taxes more than just about anything

else on this planet. … I, for one, feel this amount of taxation is absolutely ridiculous. … That is correct. I am calling

progressive taxation a form of communism. … If a person is rich, it is probably for a good reason.

I wonder how

long it is going to take conservative readers to realize that “Alex Hughes” is actually a satirist whose purpose is to make conservatives

seem shallow and dim. Alex confesses, “I hate taxes more than just about anything else on this planet.” I assume “just about” carries the

burden of covering rape, murder, war, and lying to the public for personal profit and political gain.

Outraged, he asks, “Does the

government honestly think it can spend my money more effectively than I can?” Gee, Alex, how many nuclear warheads can you and your pals

afford? Daddy may have given you an SUV, but who gave you the road? Where do voting machines and public schools come from?

Let’s

consider one simple fact: there are things that only a government can or should do (libertarians and anarchists notwithstanding). Even

conservatives have things they want the government to do, like spy on you, restrict your freedom and make war. These things cost money.

Now, it is true, we could have the Coca-Cola Department of the Fatherland (next term), but for the short term, the government needs money

and it gets it two ways: borrow and tax. Taxes are what you and I pay for benefits and services we’re never going to get from

corporations (until we have the Nike Department of War). Borrowed money has to be repaid with interest to large corporations and rich

investors. So, not only are the rich not paying taxes, they are also getting richer from the interest paid out of the taxes you and I

will pay forever.

For many years, conservatives have won converts with a simple mantra: taxation is theft; the government is stealing

your money. To them, there is no commonwealth nor common good; every man for himself. If you want a nation, it is going to cost you

something.

On just one more matter, the Estate Tax, or the Death Tax as marketing-savvy conservatives call it, had one major public

benefit: it delayed the rise of an American Aristocracy. If you allow families to accumulate wealth endlessly, some of them will end up

so stinking rich they can buy anything, even an election.

Alex declares, “If a person is rich, it is probably for a good reason.”

(This is the ‘compassionate’ version of ‘if you’re poor it’s your own damn fault.”) Maybe you’re rich because you worked really

hard; maybe you’re rich because Great-Granddaddy was — it’s not quite the same thing, is it Alex?

Let me suggest you google

“revolutions of 1848.” That was a time when the poor of the world said to the rich: enough! Talk about ‘punishing the rich’; which is

worse, a progressive tax scale or your head on a pike? America was spared this bloodshed because our own greedy rich hadn’t yet taken

over. What a difference 156 years make! mjh

Published 9/7/04 in the Daily Lobo: Letter:Government costs money, needs taxes to do its

job