Tea Bags and Taxes

According to the Chicago Tribune this morning tax protesters yesterday had a field day with tea bags. They said that the government wastes our tax money, and President Obama is to blame.

I quite agree that we have too much waste in government. I wish this were something we could blame on Barack Obama. But it’s not. The political parties in the United States have worked at getting reelected by filling necessary programs with pork, currently called entitlements.

The Republican Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska is a prime example. It is true that Governor Palin did put the kibosh on the bridge, but she kept the entitlement money, which she spent on other things (but not comprehensive sex education for high school students, evidently).

Over half of federal taxes go to military spending of various sorts. Barely over ten percent go toward the operations of government.

I just checked my records, and my monthly federal tax deduction is $688. On the other hand my health insurance costs my wife and me $2,030+ each month, in addition to our out-of-pocket expenses. They include deductibles, medications, and like that. That comes out to just about thirty-five bucks a month less than three times the federal tax deductions. When we figure that we get money back from the feds each year when we file taxes, we can honestly say that our health insurance is three times our federal taxes each year.

Back to the “teabaggers.” [By the way, teabagging is frequently a sexual act, and the term that Fox News has applied to these people is probably ill advised.] According to the news, thousands of people all across the country protested with millions of tea bags in an act of rebellion that supposedly mirrored the Boston Tea Party, which started the American Revolution.

I don’t hear, however, about thousands of people protesting the high cost of health care in the United States despite the fact that about fifteen per cent of the population is without any kind of health insurance.

I agree that government spending is out of hand. A large part of it is the high cost of the war in Iraq, a preemptive war that we could have done without. Dick Cheney and George Bush apparently were playing mine is bigger, and the Law of Unintended Consequences took over.

If we were to spend the money we’re pouring and have poured into Iraq, we could fund good health care for everyone. We could fix the infrastructure, we could fund schools, we could fund anti-gang programs, we could fund comprehensive sex education programs even in Alaska, and we could donate tea bags to everyone who thinks their taxes are being wasted.

As always, I invite you to comment below.