Taxes

I just did my taxes and I am angry. Not for the reasons you would think with all the rhetoric we hear about taxes these days.

First a little background: We are a family of four. My husband has a good job and I stay home with the boys and go to school part time. We rent. We are not poor, we have no debts and we are doing OK.

We live in California. If you haven’t heard there is a huge budget crisis here. The Governator is calling for a 10% cut across the board to all state services. Teachers are being laid off in our city schools. Classes are being cut from the community college I attend. We already had big budget problems in the county where I live and library hours have been cut and we can’t keep firefighters and police around because we pay so much less than other areas. We borrow money from the future to repair our infrastructure but dare not speak of raising taxes.

So how much income tax do you think my family pays for all the state services we use? NOTHING. That’s right, the state has decided that we are too poor to pay taxes and are refunding all the money we gave them. This offends me. Apparently it is fine to have a huge budget deficit and fire teachers but it is not OK for the government to expect me to pay for the services I receive.

Don’t even get me started on my Federal tax bill, I am getting most of my money back from them too. All the benefits we have as Americans cost money. It costs a lot of money to do all the important things our government does. We need police, firefighters, teachers, janitors, doctors, soldiers, roads, bridges, city planners and garbage trucks. Paying for it all is our patriotic duty. Don’t tell me we need “tax relief” and don’t tell me I am too poor to do my part!