My friend David mentioned a Bruce Rauner re-election ad extolling the lower taxes in neighboring states. I was thinking: "Is it the taxes themselves or what the money is spent on that annoys us the most?" At the top of my hate list are settlements we have to pay out for harm done by bad cops, and hefty pensions and perks for greedy politicians.
The most direct pleasure I got from my tax dollars occurred when I lived in Oak Lawn. I loved the parks, forest preserves and indoor sports facilities provided by the Park District.
As for Rauner and high-tax Illinois: I think I'll still take Chicago over Indianapolis, St. Louis, or Milwaukee. But, we'd all like to be "Queen (or King) for a Day" so we could rearrange things. Right?
The tax discussion extends, of course, to the current attempt to overhaul the federal income tax. Supply-siders, like religious fanatics, continue to extol the virtue of trickle down, despite no evidence that it works, and much evidence (in Kansas) that it is a disaster. If these folks are so confident that it will boost the economy, they should give tax breaks to the job creators only AFTER the jobs have appeared.
ReplyDeleteShow us the job!
ReplyDelete