Way back in 2003, I penned this post that more than five years later still gets regular hits. (It has received eighty hits since the start of the year, according to Google Analytics.) I was very politically incorrect back then when I suggested that we are not paying enough in taxes. I still feel this way and I am sad to say that recent news articles bear me out. We are woefully behind simply maintaining the infrastructure that we have. This was tragically borne out a year ago with the catastrophic bridge collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River Bridge in Minneapolis that killed thirteen people. As a direct result of this event, federal and state money suddenly materialized to replace this bridge. The replacement bridge will cost $234 million and is scheduled for completion by Christmas.
You would think that this event might have changed the dynamics. However, as the Associated Press found, just twelve percent of our most structurally deficient high use bridges have been repaired. It would cost an estimated $140 billion to repair just the bridges that need to be repaired right now. Yet, President Bush is threatening to veto a transportation bill because it spends $1 billion more than he likes. It will not surprise you to learn that Bush’s motives are wholly ideological. He is a conservative and conservatives do not believe in raising taxes or spending money on projects not considered essential. Apparently, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, bridge construction is not essential to this president. Our War in Iraq though is essential, and at least some of that money is going to build new bridges for Iraqis. Apparently, bridges are essential for Iraq, but are not essential for the United States. Go figure.
I picked bridge repair as an example only because it is easy to see the consequences of inaction. In fact, our infrastructure is crumbling all around us. Here in Virginia, our state House of Delegates once again bollixed up attempts to raise transportation taxes. The result is that not just bridges that are suffering, but cars spend much time sitting in traffic and consequently unnecessarily spewing emissions. So far this year there have been three Code Red air quality days for the Washington region, and twelve Code Orange days.
Better air quality, like safe bridges, are solvable problems. Neither is solved by rocket science but by the application of money and will. Just as maintaining your car means you extend its useful life, bridge life can be extended through regular maintenance too. Instead, we would rather defer the cost of maintenance to have a little more cash in our pockets today. The result is like driving your car on a half a quart of oil. You can do it for a while, but at some point, you are looking at some very expensive consequences. It is pennywise and pound-foolish.
The anti-tax crowds, epitomized by nuts like Grover Norquist, are pennywise folk. They are convinced that all expenditures of money by governments are ultimately wasteful no matter how much they address a public need. Their philosophy though amounts to living in the moment and closing their ears when the application of their philosophy results in inconvenient news, like what happened in Minneapolis one year ago exactly on August 1, 2007. These problems do not go away by ignoring them. They simply get worse and more expensive to fix.
The irony is that if instead of aggressively cutting taxes we had prudently kept the old tax rates then we would have had the money back then to fix many of the systemic problems that are cropping up all over the place today. Our tax rates seemed quite acceptable to the American public when our president was inaugurated. We were even paying back some of our massive debt. Granted, even back in 2000 we were not quite spending what we needed to spend to address problems like deteriorating bridges. This was due in part to federal gas taxes not having changed since 1993. However, construction costs have increased during that time. The result is that there is less money available to fund projects like bridge maintenance. Rather than raise gas taxes, thus far Congress’ solution is to charge it. Hopefully only as an interim measure, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to add eight billion dollars to the Highway Trust Fund by supplementing it with money from general Treasury funds. In other words, we will go into more debt to pay for it and pass its cost on to future generations.
Our fiscal crisis in many ways mirrors our blindness with the oil crisis. We buy more foreign oil because we are used to an oil-based economy and do not want to think about how hard it would be to change to something else. We know that recoverable oil is a finite resource that in general will only get pricier because it will be harder to extract. Similarly, we borrow money from creditors on the expectation that they will always be willing to lend it to us. As some overleveraged homeowners are finding out, if your liabilities exceed your assets no one is willing to loan you any money. The same can happen to the United States government. Our weak dollar, trading at record lows, suggests the time may not be that far off.
To solve the oil crisis we must realize that we cannot drill our way back to our previous lifestyle. To solve our fiscal crisis, we have to realize that we cannot indefinitely depend on our creditors unless we first show a willingness as a nation to roll up our sleeves to fix some of these problems. In short, we need to raise taxes.
Raising taxes is never convenient, particularly at a time when so many Americans are struggling. That is why my suggestion will go over like a lead balloon. That is also why if I were ever inclined to move my fantasy run for president into a real run for president, my message would fall mainly on deaf ears. Like John Anderson in 1980, I would lose spectacularly.
Still, most of us, if we stop listening to the spin and start listening to our hearts, know that we face a new inconvenient truth. The cost of not raising taxes today simply means that to fix these problems tomorrow will cost even more. So yes, for a while, those extra taxes would hurt. At some point, you sufficiently address the under-funded infrastructure problems and taxes can be eased. Nevertheless, taxes must never be eased beyond the point that we can adequately maintain the infrastructure we need to run our modern society.
Instead of running for president, all I can do is be that fly in the ointment. I am more than willing to pony up my share of additional taxes. Most likely, I would pay disproportionately more in taxes than many of you, since I have a six-figure income. I do not like paying more taxes either, but I am willing to do so. I do know that despite laughably naïve men like Grover Norquist, we are interconnected. We critically depend on our infrastructure and our social safety nets. Since like you I get great value from these things, I am not afraid to pay my share.
As was true when I wrote about it in 2003, things cost money! They cost what they cost because that is how much it costs! No ideology can change this. I expect to pay close to $200 on Monday to have a locksmith fix a bad lock, which must work with our house key. It seemed like a lot of money to me too, but that is the going rate for fixing a problem that I cannot fix by myself. I would rather pay the $200 than find that anyone could get into my house or that I could not get out when I needed to.
We have a great nation that thanks to the low tax mantra is rapidly moving from first-class status to second-class status. I think I am a patriot by coming forward to proclaim that I am willing to have my taxes raised to make sure we remain a first class nation.
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August 1st, 2008 at 12:46pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2008 |
3 comments
It’s dangerous when our legislature is in session. It seems they can’t help themselves. Rather than concentrate on boring things like funding roads and education they have to find ways to infringe on our civil liberties instead. And lately they seem to have this thing for women who might actually want to choose when they get pregnant.
It started back in early January with the introduction of HB 1677. Delegate John A. Cosgrove (Republican, naturally) of Chesapeake decided it should be a crime if a woman did not report a miscarriage within twelve hours. She would be guilty of a Class 1 Misdemeanor. In other words after suffering the trauma of a miscarriage, any woman who didn’t have her wits sufficiently together to promptly report the experience would be a lawbreaker. For this “crime” she could spend up to 12 months in jail and pay a $2,500 fine.
I, along with many other Virginians, were outraged. Fortunately we had time to act on this bill before it was presented for an up or down vote. I did my part and contacted my state representative and senator. And thankfully this horrible bill was withdrawn.
But the wingnuts are back. Yesterday the Virginia Senate passed the Devolites Davis bill, SB 456. This is an amendment to a bill submitted by Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple. Her bill simply defined contraception as the prevention of the union of sperm or egg or implantation of an egg in the uterine wall. No problem there: this seems like an obvious and straightforward definition.
But our legislature couldn’t leave well enough alone. As the Hampton Roads Daily Press put it:
[Whipple's] bill would legally define contraception as the prevention of the union of sperm and egg or implantation of an egg in the uterine wall.
Commonly prescribed birth-control pills prevent pregnancy through both means. Abortion opponents who contend life begins at conception insist that denying a fertilized egg the opportunity to attach itself to the womb and develop as a fetus is a form of abortion.
Whipple’s bill and a companion measure by Del. Kristin Amundson, D-Fairfax County, would head off anti-abortion groups’ efforts to classify birth control pills as a form of abortion. That could subject obtaining the pills, intrauterine devices and other forms of birth-control to Virginia’s growing list of abortion restrictions, including parental notification and consent for girls under 18…
Sen. Jeannemarie Devolites Davis’ floor amendment applied a less specific dictionary definition of pregnancy. It was adopted largely along party lines in a 21-17 vote with one abstention.
Rather than take the chance that this amended bill could classify birth control pills as abortion devices Whipple has withdrawn the legislation.
Meanwhile, Delegate Mark Cole introduced HB 1918, which wants to give any fertilized human egg protection. “That life begins at the moment of fertilization and the right to enjoyment of life guaranteed by Article 1, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia is vested in each born and preborn human being from the moment of fertilization.” Never mind the inconvenient scientific fact that life does not begin at conception. A fertilized egg is a zygote. It cannot grow nor does it divide at this stage. It is inert. It has not even divided once. Conception occurs when the zygote travels into the uterus and implants itself onto the wall of the uterus. It is when the zygote comes in contact with the blood of the uterine wall that energy allows cell division to begin. It is then that something resembling life has actually started.
I hate learning about these things after the fact. But if you are a concerned citizen of Virginia you cannot wait until these stories show up months later in The Washington Post. Their editors there seem to be asleep on these issues. But you can get on the Democracy for Virginia Legislative Sentry mailing list. And be prepared to act quickly before yet another needlessly intrusive bill is quietly voted into law and one more right you’ve always taken for granted vanishes from the Commonwealth.
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January 25th, 2005 at 09:01pm
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2005 |
no comments
What is it about my state? Why does our legislature go out of its way, not just to merely be conservative but to craft laws that actively find ways to stick it to those it doesn’t like? Lately I’ve been feeling like the Christian Taliban has taken over my state government. We had Operation Iraqi Freedom. When do the Marines come in to liberate the citizens of Virginia? What a sad irony: the state that set the standard for freedom in America and gave innovative statesmen like Thomas Jefferson and George Mason now gleefully enacts more and more laws that restrict social and economic freedoms for those it doesn’t like.
The latest outrage totally escaped me until I read about it yesterday. Yes, I knew that our legislature had passed yet another defense of marriage act law. But I thought it was symbolic because Virginia already has many statutes on the book that outlawed gay marriage. Another one seemed like it hardly could make things worse. But I was wrong.
How did Virginia go the extra mile to stick it to gays? On April 21st the Virginia legislature banned all contracts between partners in homosexual marriage-like relationships. Here it is, H.R. 751, in its entirety: one short paragraph:
A civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement between persons of the same sex purporting to bestow the privileges or obligations of marriage is prohibited. Any such civil union, partnership contract or other arrangement entered into by persons of the same sex in another state or jurisdiction shall be void in all respects in Virginia and any contractual rights created thereby shall be void and unenforceable.
Think about what this means. This means that a gay person who has lived his life with his spouse cannot legally pass on any of his or her assets to his or her partner. It means a gay’s life partner cannot have Power of Attorney privileges. He or she cannot be a beneficiary of their partner’s will. At the end of life a gay’s life partner cannot decide their partner’s end of life care.
This is truly bizarre. In Virginia as a married man I can name my sister as my beneficiary, give power of attorney over to my business partner and write a will that leaves my wife with nothing but my debts. And it’s all perfectly legal if a bit despicable. But if I happened to be gay and have a life partner then under Virginia law I can’t leave him a penny in my will. He could have spent decades loving me and nurturing me. Even though I may have millions of dollars of my own assets I am prohibited from giving even a penny of it to my life partner.
But it appears to be more than that. What sort of other financial things do married people usually do together? Buying property is one. This statute appears to prohibit two gay people from buying shared housing together. Presumably joint bank accounts are not allowed either. Any loans for which both parties are responsible appear to unlawful. Potentially a gay person could adopt a child but certainly not both a gay person and his spouse.
Even more discouraging is that the bill was passed with veto proof majorities. This bill is now the law of the State of Virginia, effective July 1st. This means it will be almost impossible to overturn.
Who was responsible for this monstrosity? Sadly, it was not some down state representative representing Jerry Falwell’s oxymoric Liberty University. No, it was Robert G. Marshall, who represents the nearby city of Manassas. This is the same guy who pushed a law barring access to contraceptives at Virginia colleges and universities.
There are a number of groups here in Virginia who are working to change this law. But make no mistake. We live in a state that even though the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the sodomy laws refuses to take them off its books. Changing this law will be a tough, uphill fight. One way is through a boycott of Virginia businesses. This group for example is maintaining a Virginia business boycott list and only those businesses that certify they are pro-tolerance will be exempted. (Of course it will be hard to call attention to the boycott, so it depends on word of mouth. So trackback this blog entry and forward it to all your progressive friends!) The group is also working on a counterpoint to the Yes Virginia campaign. That effort is trying to convince businesses is other states to relocate to Virginia. But if your business is progressive enough to realize that sexual orientation has no bearing on competency in the workplace you should locate your business elsewhere. Virginia is actively making it more difficult for your business to attract and maintain a quality workforce through blatantly discriminatory laws against homosexuals.
For 35 years Virginia has claimed it was the state for lovers. What a joke. Well, it’s certainly not the state for homosexual lovers. Fornication is unlawful so it’s certainly not the state for unmarried lovers. Adultery is also illegal so it’s not the state for hanky panky. It’s certainly not the state for unmarried couples of the opposite sex who don’t want to get married. Shared cohabitation between unrelated people of the opposite sex is against the law. And until the Supreme Court abolished sodomy laws (including Virginia’s) it wasn’t the state for committed married couples who liked to engage in oral or anal sex. I guess there needs to be an asterisk next to the state slogan: applies to married, heterosexual couples who copulate using the missionary position only.
To all those who are homosexual, bisexual or anyone with any sense of decency and fairness: I am sorry we have a state run by anal retentive knee jerk conservative wackos. I am sorry my state legislature consists of a veto proof majority of twits who have apparently zero sense of compassion or empathy in their tiny little hearts. The Grinch’s heart was two sizes too small. I’m not sure you could find the heart of Rep. Robert G. Marshall. Like Dick Cheney, he must have ice water running through his veins.
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July 4th, 2004 at 11:18am
Posted by
Mark |
Politics 2004 |
2 comments
