Florida is one of those states where people come to maintain the fiction that you don’t need money to run the services demanded by common sense.  One thing I miss since leaving New Jersey is that my car does not need inspections anymore so I am free to pollute the air and endanger other motorists by a malfunctioning part.  I am not taxed for the privilege to help keep clunkers off the streets and the idiots who drive like maniacs. It was a pain to go through inspection but sensible to pay a tax for it.

Using New Jersey once again as an example, the good people there have had to deal with a constitution that required a “thorough and efficient” system of schools in order to provide an educated citizenry.  There seems to me no system of education except for the brainless “No child left behind” fiasco generated by the team Bush of the Federal and State obfuscation of what education is truly about.  Using tests and punishing “failing “schools instead of resorting to professionals in teaching who should be paid what they are worth to the democratic system we have created makes no sense.  But, thinking people are capable of loosing their sense of right and proportion in order to avoid the dreaded tax.

Once again I state unequivocally that I endorse taxation.  I think that what we have now is unfair because those who can afford to pay taxes do not get taxed while those who cannot afford taxation have the burden passed on to them.  Paying taxes to live in a free country should be privilege rather than a punishment.  To pervert the meaning of government by saying that soulless bureaucrats sit in isolation from the rest of us and demand payment of taxes to satisfy the officers of government we empower to do this is a travesty.  Government is of the people, by the people and for the people not to extract wealth from the people to ensure exotic life-styles for a few of the people.

I consider it a privilege to pay my taxes but I reserve the right to protest and oppose unfair taxation of those who can least afford it.  I also would like to point out that the lukewarm opposition to the Bush formula of giving tax relief to the rich is redolent of the stink of bad politics and arm in arm stiff-arming the masses while the powerful few make the rules for the rest of us. Once more about taxes:  Taxes are needed to pay the costs of running our government.  Unfortunately, we have allowed ourselves to be suckered into a costly war that is unending by the same crew who thought up rewarding the rich by giving THEM the tax breaks.  Taxes are needed to pay the bills unless you can think of another way of raising money to keep our country afloat.