Last week a notice from the Federal Government arrived in the mail announcing that I owed a penalty of $585 for paying my taxes late.
A month earlier, I paid the Federal Government approximately $4400 on an income of less than $40000.00. I paid the state of North Carolina another $500. (These payments broke my bank account). In addition, every time I pump gasoline into my car, buy groceries or books, in fact buy anything at all, the state or federal government is snatching bucks out of my wallet. On top of that, I paid an accountant $750 this past year because 1) I can no longer figure out how to draw up my taxes and 2) I thought I would save some money.
And now I owe another $585?
A month earlier, I paid the Federal Government approximately $4400 on an income of less than $40000.00. I paid the state of North Carolina another $500. (These payments broke my bank account). In addition, every time I pump gasoline into my car, buy groceries or books, in fact buy anything at all, the state or federal government is snatching bucks out of my wallet. On top of that, I paid an accountant $750 this past year because 1) I can no longer figure out how to draw up my taxes and 2) I thought I would save some money.
And now I owe another $585?
How did we arrive at such sorry circumstances?
A feudal serf used to work a set number of days per month for his master. For my masters—and yes, that word implies slavery or serfdom—I worked about five months this year to pay my taxes.
Meanwhile, the government boys and girls skip merrily along, secure with their salaries, their pensions, their health care, and their exemptions.
Of the top five richest counties in the United Sates, three are in Northern Virginia: Loudon, Fairfax, and Arlington counties. A huge number of the people in those counties either work directly for the Federal Government or with businesses connected to the government.
In these counties live the people who collect our taxes, disburse our taxes, and are paid by our taxes. These are the people, many of them, who pass and enforce thousands and thousands of federal regulations, laws and rules that occasionally do some good, but more often strangle the American private sector.
Do those facts bother no one else? Are we not disturbed that our “public servants” are now our masters, lords of the manor? Americans once revolted under the battle cry of "No taxation without representation." So how about it? Do we feel justly represented today?
And what of our young people? How in the hell do young people make a living these days? How can they
make their way in a world where monies for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue getting fatter and fatter at their expense?
Today there are three workers for every one person drawing Social Security and Medicare. By 2040, two workers will be working to provide benefits for that retiree.
Such a system cannot be sustained. It won’t work. You don’t need an economics degree to see that these programs are built on sand. We can delude ourselves, we can make ourselves feel good by spending money to help others, but two plus two still makes four.
Already, our young people are taxed to death, in part paying for the likes of me. And like me, they are victims of the sloth, indifference, greed, and incompetence of our government and its bureaucrats, serfs oppressed by masters.
Ask yourselves: Why am I paying these taxes? What good is coming from them? Why does a nation that built a federal highway system in two decades now take three years to repair a bridge? Why do we spend a fortune on public education, yet produce so many poor students? Why is our healthcare system even more broken than it was ten years ago? Why has a stable family life, once the core of American society, given way to a society where over 40% of babies are born to single mothers?
Let’s look at that last question to understand the grotesque instrusions of government. In1965, Daniel Patrick Monahan, a Democrat, a brilliant writer, and then Assistant Secretary of Labor, issued a report that rising welfare benefits were damaging black family life. These benefits, Monahan believed, were destroying the incentive for marriage. His report was ignored. In that year, one of four black children was born out of wedlock. Today that figure is almost three of every four babies born to unwed mothers. In the last forty years, nearly all other ethnic groups, mostly poor, have also seen an explosion in unwed mothers and destroyed families.
There are ancillary reasons for this explosion—changes in the culture, the decline of religion, a sea change in sexual mores—but the government’s welfare system has helped drive this transformation. Family no longer matter to our masters.
Swarming with lobbyists, commanded by elites who regard themselves as superior to their fellow citizens, our government is bloated, corrupt, and smug.
So what do we do?
First, we could just wait and watch the system collapse. The United States has not been debt free since 1835. The last balanced budget occurred during the presidency of Bill Clinton. As of March of 2016, the federal owed more than $19 trillion, including over a trillion dollars to China alone. Most of us over the age of 15 know that we reduce debt by earning more money and cutting back expenses, but apparently the Federal Government is unaware of the latter solution. So we blunder on, to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, boats against the current.
Next, our government could wake from its stupor, quit jabbering about tax hikes or reductions, and make a serious effort to cut government waste, closing certain federal agencies, reducing the federal work force, and turning many federal functions back to state and local government where they belong.
Finally, we serfs could take a stand and revolt. The revolt would be bloodless. We would simply refuse to pay our taxes until we saw actual reform in the government. We could, as one government ad during the failed war on drugs put it, “Just say no.” No more payments until we see some results.
But we all know what will and won’t happen.
There will be no revolt.
There will be little, if any, reform.
The government will continue to belly up to the bar and spend our money like a drunken sailor. The rest of the country will stagger forward, besotted as the bureaucrats on goodies, freebies, and benefits, until it falls on its face. The debt will come home, as it always does, and Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings will once more limp up to pay us a visit.
May that visit come soon.
Gods of The Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
A feudal serf used to work a set number of days per month for his master. For my masters—and yes, that word implies slavery or serfdom—I worked about five months this year to pay my taxes.
Meanwhile, the government boys and girls skip merrily along, secure with their salaries, their pensions, their health care, and their exemptions.
Of the top five richest counties in the United Sates, three are in Northern Virginia: Loudon, Fairfax, and Arlington counties. A huge number of the people in those counties either work directly for the Federal Government or with businesses connected to the government.
In these counties live the people who collect our taxes, disburse our taxes, and are paid by our taxes. These are the people, many of them, who pass and enforce thousands and thousands of federal regulations, laws and rules that occasionally do some good, but more often strangle the American private sector.
Do those facts bother no one else? Are we not disturbed that our “public servants” are now our masters, lords of the manor? Americans once revolted under the battle cry of "No taxation without representation." So how about it? Do we feel justly represented today?
And what of our young people? How in the hell do young people make a living these days? How can they
make their way in a world where monies for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid continue getting fatter and fatter at their expense?
Today there are three workers for every one person drawing Social Security and Medicare. By 2040, two workers will be working to provide benefits for that retiree.
Such a system cannot be sustained. It won’t work. You don’t need an economics degree to see that these programs are built on sand. We can delude ourselves, we can make ourselves feel good by spending money to help others, but two plus two still makes four.
Already, our young people are taxed to death, in part paying for the likes of me. And like me, they are victims of the sloth, indifference, greed, and incompetence of our government and its bureaucrats, serfs oppressed by masters.
Ask yourselves: Why am I paying these taxes? What good is coming from them? Why does a nation that built a federal highway system in two decades now take three years to repair a bridge? Why do we spend a fortune on public education, yet produce so many poor students? Why is our healthcare system even more broken than it was ten years ago? Why has a stable family life, once the core of American society, given way to a society where over 40% of babies are born to single mothers?
Let’s look at that last question to understand the grotesque instrusions of government. In1965, Daniel Patrick Monahan, a Democrat, a brilliant writer, and then Assistant Secretary of Labor, issued a report that rising welfare benefits were damaging black family life. These benefits, Monahan believed, were destroying the incentive for marriage. His report was ignored. In that year, one of four black children was born out of wedlock. Today that figure is almost three of every four babies born to unwed mothers. In the last forty years, nearly all other ethnic groups, mostly poor, have also seen an explosion in unwed mothers and destroyed families.
There are ancillary reasons for this explosion—changes in the culture, the decline of religion, a sea change in sexual mores—but the government’s welfare system has helped drive this transformation. Family no longer matter to our masters.
Swarming with lobbyists, commanded by elites who regard themselves as superior to their fellow citizens, our government is bloated, corrupt, and smug.
So what do we do?
First, we could just wait and watch the system collapse. The United States has not been debt free since 1835. The last balanced budget occurred during the presidency of Bill Clinton. As of March of 2016, the federal owed more than $19 trillion, including over a trillion dollars to China alone. Most of us over the age of 15 know that we reduce debt by earning more money and cutting back expenses, but apparently the Federal Government is unaware of the latter solution. So we blunder on, to quote F. Scott Fitzgerald, boats against the current.
Next, our government could wake from its stupor, quit jabbering about tax hikes or reductions, and make a serious effort to cut government waste, closing certain federal agencies, reducing the federal work force, and turning many federal functions back to state and local government where they belong.
Finally, we serfs could take a stand and revolt. The revolt would be bloodless. We would simply refuse to pay our taxes until we saw actual reform in the government. We could, as one government ad during the failed war on drugs put it, “Just say no.” No more payments until we see some results.
But we all know what will and won’t happen.
There will be no revolt.
There will be little, if any, reform.
The government will continue to belly up to the bar and spend our money like a drunken sailor. The rest of the country will stagger forward, besotted as the bureaucrats on goodies, freebies, and benefits, until it falls on its face. The debt will come home, as it always does, and Kipling’s Gods of the Copybook Headings will once more limp up to pay us a visit.
May that visit come soon.
Gods of The Copybook Headings by Rudyard Kipling
AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.
When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."
On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."
Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!