|
Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity,
and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have
benefited more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure
domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and
promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the
environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads
and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for
doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency,
like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue
workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are
devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of
poverty, taxes pay, even, for food.
What’s
surprising, given how much money and passion have been spent
to defeat a broad-based, progressive income tax over the past
century, and how poorly it has been defended, is that it has
endured – testimony, perhaps, to American’s abiding sense
of fairness. Taxes are a pact. That pact needs renewing.
-- Jill Lepore
|
