As a nation we have broken our mental connection between taxes and what they pay for; we expect something for nothing. We have borrowed from the rest of the world every year for the last 20 years because we wouldn’t face up to the need to pay for all the benefits we received from our governmental institutions: personal safety, food safety, rule of law, stable currency, economic stability, transportation, education, military, police, social services, etc. Over the last 8 years, we have borrowed (or sold national assets) to the tune of nearly $6 trillion from the rest of the world (approximately half by our government and half commercially) so that we could fight two wars, borrow endlessly on our homes and credit cards to shop freely at our malls and appear to grow our economy, save less than 1% and pay even lower taxes— an idiotic set of behaviors, but one we, including those who now rant and rave, accepted like children who desperately want to cling to their belief in Santa Claus.
Tea bagging parties reflect “Denial” and “Anger and Blame” —the first two conscious steps all our brains take to resist the need to make profound changes in ourselves—we either blame everyone else or dig up a few scapegoats, then sit back and live our own lives; self satisfied, our core beliefs unchanged because “they” must change, not us.
I am deeply worried. It looks like we are choosing to fail miserably before we accept the only sustainable reality: a pay as you go lifestyle and repayment of most of the international debts we’ve accumulated over the last 25 years—not our present lifestyle of ever more debt, like homeowners who borrow on their homes to pay their mortgages.
At this time in our history we are probably the opposite of the Greatest Generation— our self-sacrificing ancestors who lived through the Great Depression, fought WWII while denying themselves all but the basic necessities and who then launched the greatest growth of infrastructure and business in our history while paying taxes that (from 1940-1967) were as high as 91% on incomes over $200k while their personal savings rate exceeded 8% each and every year. We’ve been living off that generation for decades, it’s time we made our own contributions— but first we all have to get real, suck it up and pay much higher taxes while saving more money and repaying our debts; I include myself in that advice. Sounds unpleasant and will shock the economy, but the alternative is profoundly more tragic and will be entirely out of our control.
