I could not have done it alone.
We all know that tax revenue built our roads, our schools, our water systems and water treatment plants, our infrastructure to allow us to get about in our towns and cities and in our country and that without our police forces, rescue squads and fire departments, help would not be readily available when emergencies occur. We could not do it on our own. We are co-dependent – the public and the private.
Since I used a small share of this infrastructure, I paid a small share of taxes. Now there were some very large businesses in the area whose owners, private, wealthy individuals, were required to contribute more to the tax revenue.
The private individuals used our roads to transport their goods and services, carried employees to their jobs, requiring the public to support more upkeep, repairing, upgrading, replacing of roads/highways and they had hundreds of employees whose education was paid for by the public.
It stands to reason, therefore, that if you use more services, you should provide the revenue to support them.
Large oil corporations receive subsidies which they don’t deserve. They contribute to pollution of our air, and at times dramatically and detrimentally to the ecology of our pristine and ocean front lands and creatures. And yet they get rewarded for this by receiving tax breaks when they are reaping enormous profits to boot?
Why should wealthy individuals receive special consideration and not have to pay their fair share especially since we all know that the “trickle down” economics theory is a lot of hooey? How have these special tax breaks contributed to more jobs and improvement of our economy? This started in Reagan’s administration and the theory has yet to be proven. Why are we in denial about it?
Economic growth will improve only if we, public and private, work together and everyone pays their fair share.
There is a co-dependency here but it is a healthy one.