My new tax rant (March 2008)

Proposed Federal Budget for 2008-2009

My congressman sent out a mass email, asking for opinions on the proposed Federal budget and tax hikes... Here's my opinion: Everyone in government works for the people. That's not just a cute saying. We elect representatives to REPRESENT us – silly notion, eh? We already pay enough in taxes to support every service we need, but the money is ill spent and wasted. So who among us would then ask that our taxes be raised to pay for even more services for which we’ve not approved and over which we’ve no control? Oh… but we’re to leave that in the capable hands of our representative… Really? My blood boils when I think of a half-million dollar ballpark in Montana, and a $220,000,000 Alaskan bridge to nowhere, and the fact that the government spends $252,000,000,000 per year – that’s two-hundred, fifty-two BILLION dollars – just paying the interest on its indebtedness! The US government spends a billion dollars every 8 hours, or three billion dollars every day. Sorry… but I can’t afford it.

And as much as those incomprehensible and indefensible expenditures sicken me, I loathe the fact that the rules and laws handed down to us “common folk” don’t apply to those who created the laws. If I bounce checks, I actually get in trouble and have to pay for my actions. But what of the members of Congress? 1992’s Rubbergate didn’t just disappear. While the Congress and regulatory agencies scrutinize payday loans and bounced-check fees, they also turn around and determine that I may spend YEARS in prison for bouncing checks, while THEY do so on a regular basis – at the taxpayer’s expense and without fear of repercussion. I mean… LOOK at Renzi! How much more can we take? You, Congressman Hensarling, have been such a model for others to follow that I’m quite sure – and I say this with complete sincerity – other members must deride you constantly for being so straight-laced.

I work full time and I earn a salary – but not much of one. I stay at the job because my best friend owns the company for which I work, and he simply can’t afford to pay me what I’m worth. I know this because I control the company’s checkbook and pay all the bills.

Now, my friend is a truck driver. Once upon a time, he was the epitome of the computer geek, having attended university (Ottawa CA) when he was only 16. He commanded quite a salary back in the day… Then the IT market was flooded with computer geeks and the income my friend once enjoyed became a 3-for-1 proposition. “We can get 3 kids straight out of college for the price of ONE of you, old man…” No one wanted to pay a man in his mid-fifties a quarter-mil a year to do what he used to do. My friend tried everything he could think of but when his former (IT company) employer went belly-up, my friend ended up unemployed for about two years. His savings dwindled to nothing, he put a 2^nd mortgage on his house, he used up a meager inheritance, and then went to credit cards. Finally, he decided to become a trucker. It’s all he could think of to do.

Would you believe that ONE driver and ONE truck keep me busy as much as 60 or 80 hours per week? (Which bring us to the issue of over-regulating US truckers, 48 sets of state BOC’s, Canadian laws, the FMCSA, 2290, FUTA, SUI, IFTA, NY, NM, KY, [and AR property taxes though we own no property in AR], competition from Mexican trucking companies, and a federal tax-code that even the IRS doesn’t understand, but let’s not go there in this communiqué.) My friend drives that truck in 48 states and 2 Canadian provinces, drives hard and legal, may not see his home or family for weeks or months on end, and is barely treading water. He pays minimum amounts on all his bills and takes baby-steps forward while trying to stay afloat. Then, just as he starts to see the light at the end of the tunnel, Hell swoops down on us on January 1st. For the next three months, the two of us fight to keep running while the company – and WE, personally – are hit with the apportioned tag fees, the insurance renewal down-payment, property taxes, quarterly taxes, end-of-year taxes… and we end up borrowing ten or fifteen thousand dollars to cover it all. The progress we’ve made is all washed away. We make ourselves promises and, for the next nine months, try to put money back to cover the 1^st-quarter crunch, but it never happens. We’re honest and hard working – and we’re drowning.

Me? I’m a college graduate (who made it onto the rolls of every honor society out there, including Golden Key International), but I earn $1,150/month after taxes. Back in late 2001 after a series of disasters and medical issues hit me all at once, including 3 surgeries, the loss of my home, and the deaths of my father and my youngest son, I was faced with two horrible choices: I could pay my bills while living under a bridge, or I could rent a small apartment while filing bankruptcy. My friend – the trucker – gave me a way out. He offered to let me live in one half of his house, rent-free, while I got back on my feet. I accepted his offer, worked as many as three jobs at the same time, paid nearly every cent of what I earned on medical and other bills, and managed to survive without taking a penny of government assistance. My friend made that possible. Today, the tables have turned. I know that if I leave my friend to find a better-paying job, he and his company will go under for the last time. I can’t do that to him. I won’t.

I was married about 3 years ago, and my new husband has stories of his own to tell. (I won’t go into detail, but someone he loved and trusted took him to the cleaners, and he was basically wiped out.) But just this year, my husband and I just bought a house. Until last August, we both lived with my trucker friend. Our new house is a lovely little place and we’re doing just fine, thank you. But with a new house comes all the little “surprises” that home-ownership entails. We have all the regular monthly bills: mortgage, insurance, utilities, taxes, groceries, and fuel for the car – normal stuff. (I can’t afford medical insurance, but my husband has a good plan through his former employer.) Hubby happens to be a retired schoolteacher who now lives on his retirement. You already know what I earn. So you can imagine that being new (again) homeowners does NOT mean we have money to burn.

But let’s move onto the next generation… Not long ago, my daughter was attending school up here at UNT. She lived with me… any my husband… and my friend. My friend provided a home for all of us, I ran my friend’s business for not-enough money, my husband paid rent and covered the extra expenses that my friend couldn’t afford, and my daughter was the “handyman” at the house, earning her keep, too. Do you see where I’m headed with all of this? My daughter graduated from UNT last year and is now in Medical School down in San Antonio. By the time she can call herself “doctor,” she’ll be many hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and all we can do is watch and offer verbal support. I do what little I can to take some pressure off of her, but it’s not a lot. Her idea of a “big night” is a rented movie and a delivered pizza.

What you have to understand is that our stories are NOT atypical. We’re just everyday people doing what we have to do. We’re not stupid or uneducated. Between the four of us, we have six college degrees, and one of us going to be a doctor. We’re not cheaters or thieves or “assistance addicts.” We’re not afraid of hard work. We’re basically average save for ONE thing: We lean on one another and combine resources to ensure one another’s survival.

And the government can’t understand that if you spend more than you have, it’s bad? They can’t say “no” to the excesses and luxuries? They can’t put the brakes on pork barrel spending? They can’t even balance their own checkbooks? And now *I*M* supposed to pay more in taxes?