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Walter Rodgers
The Christian Science Monitor
'Tis the season “when Americans of almost every political stripe unite in a perennial ritual: complaining about taxes,” said Walter Rodgers. But you won’t catch me whining: Paying my share is “part of my patriotic duty.” As former Supreme Court justice and Civil War hero Oliver Wendell Holmes once put it, “Taxes are what we pay for living in a civilized society.” It’s how we share in the burden of national defense, of policing our communities, educating our children, and providing services to the needy. Despite all the grumbling by the faux patriots “who paper their cars with chauvinistic bumper stickers and grumble about supporting the government of the country they profess to love,” taxes in the U.S. are a “terrific bargain.” Compare our federal tax rate to that of Israel, where the well-off pay 70 percent of their income in taxes, or Germany, where a 50 percent bite is the norm. Sure, I’d prefer that my tax dollars helped “woefully underpaid schoolteachers” rather than “huge agribusiness concerns.” But there’s no perfect tax system, and compromise is the essence of democracy. So please, stop the bitching and moaning. “Genuine patriots don’t complain about their patriotic obligations.”
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