Abolish the IRS

is what I saw on the bumper sticker in front of me this morning. Of course, everyone is entitled to their opinion; but as I drove along behind her, I dreamed about having a conversation about that bumper sticker. Of course, given the way folks get worked up about their political opinions, I suspect that conversation would never be possible ... but still, I can dream. So, here's how I imagine that conversation going:

Me: So, you want to abolish the IRS?

Her: Absolutely, and without question.

Me: So, if we get rid of the IRS, who would collect taxes?

Her: That's part of the point - that money is mine, and the government shouldn't take it from me.

Me: But if the government doesn't collect taxes, how will the roads we drive on get built and maintained? How will the police and fire departments get paid? How will the government be funded?

Her: Neighborhoods and communities would band together to take care of their own neighborhoods, to take care of themselves. Plus, the government is too big anyway - we don't need nearly so much government infrastructure.

Me: You're advocating for smaller government?

Her: Yes.

Me: But still, even if the government is smaller, someone needs to collect taxes. Do we get rid of the one we have now (the IRS) in favor of another agency that we develop after abolishing the IRS?

Her: No. The government doesn't need to take my money from me.

Me: You're really advocating anarchy, then, right?

Her: No, not anarchy. I'm advocating neighborhoods and affinity groups banding together to take care of themselves instead of the government thinking they need to tell us what to do.

Me: OK, so neighbors band together to take care of their own roads, and their own sewer systems and their own police forces. How, then, would these things be paid for?

Her: Neighbors would make contributions to a fund to pay for them. 

Me: Well, you may be thinking on a smaller scale, but neighborhoods banding together to take care of themselves seems to me to be the definition of government. It seems to me to be a bad idea to abolish the IRS, or most other government agencies. Obviously some need reform. Obviously some don't work the way they ought to work. However, unless a person is advocating anarchy, it seems asenine to think it's a good idea to get rid of the IRS, especially when that sentiment is on a car that's driving down a road paid for with tax money.

Folks, that's the way the conversation would go in my head. And I'm not even considering the Christian values that we hold to care for one another, to be our brother's and sister's keeper.

It seems like I've set up a straw man to argue against - I have to be missing something from 'Her' side of the conversation, but can't imagine what it is. Someone, help me out in the comments section.

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Raising Taxes

I just saw a social media comment (you know how it goes on the blue-bordered social media site ~ someone wrote something, and then their 'friend', who has a different opinion, wrote a comment expressing their opinion) indicating that they don't want their taxes raised by asking the rhetorical question, "Do you want your taxes raised?"

Of course, if we heard it as an actual question, rather than one written to make a point, I believe that the typical and natural response would be "obviously not".

See, by and large, we're greedy.  Once we have possession of something, especially something valuable, we tend to want to keep it.  In this case, we tend to want to keep our money, because it's valuable.  With money, we can buy things we want.

My response to the question "Do you want your taxes raised?", though is almost always "Yes, of course".

Don't get me wrong ~ I'm just as greedy as the next person.  When I have money, I want to keep possession of it so that I can buy things that I want.  It's just that in this case, that's exactly what my taxes do.  With my taxes, I buy things I want.  For instance:

The Police and Fire Departments
The Military
Street Repair
Urban Sewer Systems
Student Loan Interest Relief
Food Safety
Public Libraries
Public Education
Parks and Recreation Centers
National Parks and Monuments
The Government

In short, my taxes buy civilization.  If we didn't pay taxes, we'd be much worse off.  Since I like civilization, I want civilization to continue, and so I'm happy to pay for it. 

Of course, we could argue forever about whether tax dollars are spent wisely or not ~ which would be a good conversation.  I, for one, would consider spending much less on the military.  Or, maybe I'd spend just as much, but would spend less on fighting wars and more on salaries for enlisted troops.

I'd spend more on public libraries, more on parks and rec, more on student loan interest relief, and much more on public education. 

But, how we spend tax dollars and how much are we required to pay in taxes are separate (albeit related) questions.

So, to say that we pay too much in taxes is to imply that the government is able to undertake all of the projects that are beneficial to the public welfare without any financial constraints.  And, given the truth that for two years in a row the public education budget in Colorado shrank while enrollment increased reminds us of the problems with this claim.

Some people (motivated by greed) want to pay less in taxes so that they can purchase more things that they want.  I (also motivated by greed) want to pay more in taxes because I'd like civilization, and would like to continue to purchase.

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Music in our Schools

My very excellent son played in the Denver Citywide Honor Band last weekend. He's in fifth grade, and so played with some of the best elementary school musicians from this city. He had a great time spending a Friday afternoon and seven hours of a Saturday immersed in music.

We stayed after his band's concert to hear the Citywide Middle School and High School bands concerts as well. It was inspiring to hear how much better the older bands are than the younger. It's obvious, but it's still inspiring.

I'm really glad my children are afforded the opportunity to play in school bands. In particular, I'm really glad that the school district has, so far, been willing to continue funding bands in schools. As I've noted before, I believe art (and physical education) is indispensable in public education.

But, since the economy has been recessed for a few years, and people seem to be less and less willing to pay taxes, school districts are being forced to cut their budgets and pare down to the bare bones … back to readin', 'ritin', and 'rithmetic.

I understand the dilemma ~ without enough money, do you cut the band program or the math department? Obviously, without enough money for both, the band is gone.

Colorado just received word that the state is exempted from the requirements of the so-called 'No Child Left Behind' strictures. This announcement encouraged me to look into the performance-evaluation system the state adopted that led to this exemption.

Some of the standards students should be able to demonstrate, based on the newer assessment criteria, are: creativity, innovation, communication, collaboration, initiative, and self-direction.

Colorado was granted this waiver, which allows the state more flexibility in using federal funds to assess improvement. What I really wish is that the state had more flexibility in using federal funds to actually develop these markers in students.

Here's the thing ~ I learned to play an instrument in 6^th grade. I was never, and will never be, a great musician. This does not mean, though, that my musical education was wasted. I continue, to this day, to find joy in creating music, and I believe I'm a better person because of the intangibles I learned by playing in the school band.

Mr. Richard Shaw, the conductor of the Citywide High School band pointed out the truth to us that these qualities (creativity, innovation, communication, collaboration, initiative, self-direction) are all inherent to playing in a band.

I wish the state had the finances and flexibility to actually take arts (and physical) education seriously. I wish we were raise more tax dollars to fund arts education. I wish we would recognize that even though it's difficult to measure the benefit of music to children in the short term (like we can measure improvement in mathematics), our society will benefit in the long term from teaching all children music and art.

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Traffic Tickets and Taxes

I got an unfortunate piece of mail the other day. It was from the Denver photo traffic law enforcement division … or something like that. In the envelope was a citation for running a red light. The ticket surprised me, since I didn't remember running, or even almost running, a red light recently.

I checked the date of the infraction against my calendar, realizing that I ran this red light on the day when I pretty sick. In fact, at the time I committed the offense which warranted receiving a ticket, I was on my way to try to find an urgent care clinic.

So, my in-the-mail ticket had photos of me committing the infraction. It looked, from the photos, like I had stopped at a red light, and then executed a (perfectly legal) right turn on red. The letter pointed me to a web site where there would be more photos ~ so I checked. Still, all the photos seemed to indicate that I had stopped, checked traffic, and then turned. The website had a link to video ~ so I checked. Sure enough, the video indicated that I had approached the red light about 15 seconds after it turned red. The video indicated that I had not quite come to a full and complete stop. I had virtually stopped, and certainly I had stopped enough to see that my right turn on red was entirely safe. But yes, technically, I broke the law.

But here's the thing. I'm pretty sure that, if there was a police officer sitting at the light, s/he probably wouldn't have pulled me over. And if they did, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have given me a ticket. Perhaps, based on the actual driving, I would have received a warning, since my driving was not a danger to me or anyone else. Further, on that particular day I was obviously sick. In fact, the reason I was even driving around at that particular moment was to look for an urgent care clinic. I was dreadfully sick, and if I had been stopped by a police officer, I would have asked that person where to find the clinic.

I don't know if this is true, but I've heard that the budget for the Denver police force cut pretty severely. I wonder if the Denver police department is watching traffic cameras more closely. I'm sure it costs less and creates a healthier bottom line to have an officer watching cameras than it does to have that officer on the street. But it's easier to pay for one officer in a room than an officer in a car. However, that officer in front of a television monitor is much less effective at deterring crime than an officer on the street.

The thing is, I believe that the police force (and many other governmental agencies) doesn't have enough money because we as a population are reluctant to pay taxes. What we seem to forget is that the taxes we pay isn't money that simply evaporates from our personal bank accounts ~ our taxes fund our civilization. I wonder if there's a direct correlation ~ is it true that the less taxes we're willing to pay, the less civilized we become as a society?

Maybe so, maybe not ~ but I do believe that if we paid more in taxes, I would have been less likely to receive a traffic ticket. Plus, then we would have more police officers working on the street on crime that actually endangers other people.

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The Three Rs

Reading and wRiting and aRithmetic help us to make our way through the world.  Take, for example, the simple act of grocery shopping.  Knowing the Three Rs would allow a person to WRITE a grocery list, to READ the ingredients list on food packaging, and to use ARITHMETIC to comparison shop for the best prices.  The Three Rs are absolutely important to our functioning as a society; if we don't teach these things to children, I have to believe that the future looks pretty bleak.

I'm sure there was a time in the history of western society when learning the Three Rs was an adequate education.  Of course at that time there were no televisions or computers, there was no air conditioning, there were no automatic weapons in the hands of normal citizens, and junk food laden with corn syrup and hydrogenated oils were much less prevalent.  All of these things conspire to keep children inside and imaginatively stunted. 

There was a time (when Three Rs education was adequate) that children's entertainment involved running around the neighborhoods or the fields and pastures.  There was a time (before music became professionalized) that people would play music together in the living room or on the front porch. 

I believe the schools were wise, as our home lives moved more and more predictably inside, to make sure that music and art and physical movement were part of the curriculum.  We as a society saw the value in educating the whole person, instead of just the Three-Rs-basics of the intellect.  At one time, the Three Rs were enough, because we received the rest from the rest of our lives.

These days, though, we seem to be making the mistake of assuming that if the Three Rs were enough then, they're enough now as well.  We make the mistake of ignoring the changes that have taken place in our world.  We make the mistake of removing art and music and physical education from our schools to balance the budget. 

We make these mistakes because we make the mistake of not wanting to pay taxes because we believe that having money in today's bank account is better than investing that money in our children and the future of our society. 

Now, we could climb up onto our high-horse-pedestal and say schools shouldn't need to teach art and music and physical education because families ought to be making their kids get outside, that families ought to be exposing their children to music, that families ought to be turning off the television and the computer.  We could say that ~ but we also must recognize that as much as we might say it, it isn't going to happen.

So we have a choice, as a society.  We could say that the Three Rs are enough, and that we're willing to surrender our children to the trappings of poor health, cultural ignorance, and the power of advertisement, thereby allowing our children to become little more than passive beings with atrophied muscles and atrophied minds.  In this case, we can continue to pay teachers barely a living wage, seeing them as unskilled laborers and treating them worse (as if the degrees they've earned and the hours they spend dedicated to teaching our children are meaningless and insignificant). 

Or we could choose to raise taxes and fund schools the way they should be funded, paying teachers the professional salary they deserve as professionals. 

Because I dream of a more just and compassionate and beautiful society for the future, I choose the latter.

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At the DMV

I spent three hours at the DMV the other day.  I know, I'm not the only one.  It seems like if anyone wants to complain about inefficiencies in government, or about long lines, or if anyone wants to just generally complain, the DMV seems to be a perfect target.

For this reason, every time I've gone into the DMV, I've done my best to be cordial and polite, and tried to recognize that the people who work there probably receive complaints all day.  Plus, I'm sure they hear 'jokes' and other comments even when they're not at work.  So I do everything I can to treat these people well when I find myself at the DMV. 

However, I found my patience wearing thin in my most recent DMV endeavors.  Here's what happened ... my sob story, if you will:

We bought a new car.  Well, we bought a used car, new to us.  I found the car at a smaller dealer up in Boulder.  And just to be financially safe and responsible, we took out a loan to pay for the car.  Now, I'll admit that I haven't bought many cars before, so I was unfamiliar with the paperwork that goes along with buying a car, and trusted the dealer and the credit union to guide me through.

Now, I was trying to be responsible.  So, a couple weeks after I bought the car, I went in to the DMV to get it registered.  After waiting for an hour, I got to the counter where I discovered that it takes weeks for the paperwork to arrive and be processed.  That hour was my fault.

So I returned a couple days before the temporary tag expired.  After waiting for over an hour, I discovered from the polite woman at the counter that DMV had received the paperwork, but hadn't had time to process it yet (but that the would over the weekend).  They issued me another permit, my hour having been wasted. 

So I returned the next week, and again waited for an hour.  When I got to the counter, the worker there informed me that the paperwork had been returned to the loan agency because it was incomplete.  It should be noted here that I had a copy of the missing form with the papers in my possession.  At this point, either the loan company had lost this piece of paper, or the DMV worker had missed it in the packet.  At this point, I needed a new temporary permit ~ but this time I had to pay for it. 

Two weeks later, the paperwork had not been received by the loan company.  However, I needed another temporary permit, so had to return to the DMV again.  This time, the wait was three hours.  When I got to the counter and explained the situation, I was informed that I'd need to pay for another temporary permit.  

Finally, after over two weeks, the paperwork made it to the credit union, where they discovered that the DMV had simply missed the form in the packet.  But since I had paid off the loan during the three months I'd been dealing with this, I was able to hand carry the paperwork to the DMV.  So I took it to the office, waited my required hour, and got up to the counter where the worker had trouble sorting through the different forms, since the loan paperwork was no longer pertinent.  But I came away, after five trips to DMV, four of them necessary, I came away with plates for the car.

I know this is a first world problem, and that many people in the world deal with much bigger issues than mine.  But most of my waiting could have been alleviated.  During my three-hour stint on the one day, someone standing near me asked, perhaps rhetorically, why it was taking so long.  Perhaps to his surprise, I offered an actual answer.  I believe the waits were so long, and the process was so slow, because the DMV is understaffed.  And I believe the DMV is understaffed because people don't want to pay taxes.  When I said this, my new friend asked if I didn't think we were paying a lot of taxes already (between income and sales and gasoline and all the rest).  

After pointing out that taxes are lower than they've been in decades, I told him that I'm paying anyway.  I'm paying for my lower tax rate by waiting for hours at the DMV.  I'm paying for my lower tax rate in repairs to my car when it's damaged on roads that aren't maintained.  I'm paying for my lower tax rate when my insurance and medical expenses rise.  And we're all paying for a lower tax rate (especially a lower tax rate on the wealthiest among us) as we struggle through a recession brought on by a housing crisis a banking crisis greed and politics.  

We're also making our children pay for our lower taxes today, because the education we're providing them is substandard ... because we're unwilling to pay more in taxes.  But that's for the next blog post. 

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Taxes and Education

I was talking with someone on Tuesday about taxes.  We were talking about taxes because Tuesday was voting day (which took me by surprise, having learned in school that voting day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November ... did we change that without my awareness?), and because there was a proposal to raise taxes on the Colorado ballot.   

The revenue from this tax increase would have gone to pay for schools.  As it turns out (the votes having been counted), the proposal failed miserably.  Of course, as you can see from the previous blog post, I voted in favor of this increase.  It makes me sick that this measure failed ~ it makes me sick from my perspective as a citizen, and it makes me sick from my perspective as a Christian.

As a citizen, I find it to be tremendously short-sighted that we prefer individual comfort in the short term to societal well-being in the long term.  Sure, each household may end up with a little more money in our bank account next year; but having chosen to continue to underfund our schools, we are dooming the long term well-being of our society. 

It seems to me that one question we haven't resolved, a question we might not have even adequately asked, is the question, 'What is the goal of public education in this state/country?'  If our goal is that students graduate knowing how to read, how to write, and how to do basic and essential math, we could do that job with much less money than we spend now.  If, however, we choose to value educational goals that are not as easily measurable (skill in and appreciation of art and music and literature, long-term physical fitness, critical thinking skills, etc.), then we must fund schools so that we can teach these things to our future, because most of those items are being (or have been) written out of school budgets.  

If we choose the former, we will end up with individual graduates who can read and write and do basic math.  If we choose the latter, we will end up with a generation who can build a healthy, sustainable, and life-giving society.  I choose the latter, and for this reason will always vote in favor of tax increases that will benefit schools.

On the other hand, as a Christian, I find it unconscionable that any Christian would vote against this sort of measure.  Sure, the educational issues mentioned above may have a role to play in our decision; but ignore those completely for a moment.  For Christian adults to vote against increasing taxes which would benefit schools teaches Christian children that looking out for the self is more important than looking out for the other.  In a word, it teaches greed.  Whether you have children in your household or not, is this what we want our Christian witness to be?  We can say all we want about loving other people, but children pay more attention to what we do than to what we say; and if our actions don't follow our words, then our words are meaningless.

I wonder whether the fact that so many people think that our nation is a Christian nation causes problems for our faith.  It seems to me that if we see our nation as a Christian nation, we will assume that our national values are Christian values ... and, often, they most certainly are not.  But that's a topic for another blog post.  

For now, I'll simply hope that other measures end up on future ballots, and that we come to our senses.

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Tax Increase: Schools

I was asked recently whether I'll vote in favor of or against Colorado Proposition 103.  Colorado Proposition 103, if passed, will increase both sales tax and income tax in the state of Colorado for the next five years, with the additional revenue going to fund schools.  

I almost always vote in favor of tax increases, especially those that will benefit schools ~ and I'll probably vote yes on this one, too. 

As I understand it, though, there's disagreement about whether the proposition is well-constructed, though.  Part of the trouble may be that the tax increases might impact poor people the hardest.  Poor people won't be affected by the increase in state income tax (since they don't have enough income to have to pay that tax), but they will be hit harder by the increase in sales tax than richer people. 

We're talking about two different issues, though.  There is certainly a question as to which income bracket ought to bear the greatest brunt of the tax increase.   But before that, the question is whether schools have adequate funding. 

There are certainly some who say that increased funding has never produced better results.  Obviously more money does not necessarily equal better schools.  However, it seems to me that better results are much more difficult without increased funding.  One is not a direct result of the other, but the one is impossible without the other.  If it were true that lowered funding had no effect on performance, we could run schools for free ... which is (I hope) obviously absurd. 

Now, some people also say that the schools don't need increased revenue ~ we just need to get rid of teachers unions.  The extension seems to be that if we get rid of unions, we could balance the schools' budgets by lowering teachers' salaries (or firing teachers who are too expensive).  I have to take issue, though, with the opinion that an average salary of less than $50,000 is too expensive. 

(Of course, any time anyone mentions labor unions, there's bound to be strong differences of opinion about the efficacy of those groups.  Obviously they aren't the favorite entities of business owners, since they have a tendency to cut into profits.  At the same time, unions are certainly necessary, since without the power of collective bargaining, many business owners would succumb to the pull of greed at the expense of workers.  Plus, just like any institution, both unions and business owners have the potential to become corrupt.) 


At the end of the day, it comes down to a question of values ... particularly, what do we value?  Do we value more highly our ability to increase our bank accounts?  Do we value more highly our ability to buy things right now?  Do we value more highly ourselves and our present circumstance? 

Or are we willing to be a couple percentage points less well-off right now in order to invest in schools; in order to invest in our future? Because I'm afraid that if we're not willing to invest in schools now, we're condemning the future to tremendous desperation and hardship, which our national ancestors did their best not inflict on us.  And that, I believe, is ridiculous and wrong.

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Taxes and the Common Good

The other day, the first day of school for my son, he asked me why he had to take a different bus to school. He asked me why the bus didn't pick him up and drop him off where it had for the previous three years. I responded, immediately, "Taxes". Then I explained my position to him. See, people want to keep the money that's in their bank account. People want to be able to hold on to the money that they receive in their paycheck. And since taxes necessarily take money out of people's bank accounts and/or paychecks, the electorate often votes against tax increases and elects politicians who promise to lower taxes.

Now that all sounds fine ~ it's good (in a capitalist economy) for a person to have more money in their bank account. They can purchase more, and (since we tend to equate value with financial wealth in this country) people with more money are worth more.

But we tend to forget the other side of the equation. We tend to forget that when tax revenue goes down, our access to services goes down as well. We tend to forget that when we pay less in taxes, the slack has to get taken up somewhere else.

To my simple brain, it works like this: if I paid a little more in taxes, my son could still take the same bus he took last year. But I get to save some in taxes, so I have money in my bank account so that I can pay for the gas it costs for me to drive him to his new bus stop. Of course, he still walks or rides his bike to the bus stop right now, so it's not a factor. At least, it's not a factor until it gets cold. I'm more likely to make him walk two blocks in twenty degree weather than I am to make him walk ten. So this winter, when pollution is a bigger problem here in Denver, more people will be starting cold car engines to drive kids to school. So, since we don't want to pay more taxes, we find ourselves paying for more for gas, and paying more (in the future) for healthcare.

Obviously this is simplistic. Obviously there are other factors to consider. Obviously it's no big deal for my kids to go .75 miles to the bus stop instead of .25 miles. But it's also obviously true (at least to me) that we're scared of even thinking about paying more taxes in this country; and to me, that's an unreasonable fear, since if we don't pay taxes for services, we'll end up paying for those services some other way.

Some people may say it's better that individuals have control over their money. I say, though, what about the common good. When, in this country, did it become better, or more noble, to take care of self to the exclusion of the other.

And it seems like many people who advocate so strongly for lower taxes also call themselves Christian. When did Christians become so publicly selfish? When did we stop advocating for the 'least of these' so that we ourselves could stay rich?

I'm no tax expert, but it seems to me that our selfishness is sinful. I will almost always vote for tax increases, and then work to make sure the government is using our common funds for the common good.

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