About those taxes

BY PAUL WOOD, PRESIDENT/CEO, GEORGIA ELECTRIC MEMBERSHIP CORP.

In a few weeks, America will complete its annual exercise of national dread: filing income taxes before midnight, April 15.

Calculating taxes is no fun. “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax,” said Albert Einstein, one of the brightest minds of the 20th century. Hardly anyone today would disagree.

Writing the check to Uncle Sam can be downright painful, but surely that ritual act entitles all of us to complain as much as we want.

For many taxpayers, complaining is the only enjoyable aspect of fulfilling our obligation. Don’t we all love to criticize the government for taking our hard-earned money and wasting it on projects of doubtful value?

Just about everybody plays this game. Humorist Will Rogers, a keen observer of government in his day, raised criticism of tax collecting to a fine art. “The only difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets,” he said.

I don’t want to spoil anyone’s fun, but I have never met a member of Congress who intentionally spent a single tax dollar wastefully. Most of them—in both parties—are committed to spending our tax dollars in ways that only improve our lives.

As we pay our taxes, perhaps it would make the medicine go down easier if we remind ourselves of the many ways government serves us well every day. The list would be long.

What would we do without EPA’s help in setting air- and water-quality standards that guarantee safe water for drinking and clean air for breathing? Or laws regulating meatpacking to make sure the bacon we enjoy each morning will not harm us?

Many of us have government-underwritten mortgages, and some of our children enjoy below-market federal student loans. All of us drive cars made safer by seat belts and air bags mandated by government. Of course, we drive those cars on Interstates built by the government.

Although we worry about the future solvency of Social Security, we are glad it is there to provide basic financial support for those who need help in taking care of themselves in retirement. And what would retirees do without Medicare to help with health care costs?

No one involved in electric membership cooperatives can forget the role government played in delivering electricity to areas of the country where for-profit electric utilities refused to go.

Of course, government continues to seek new ways to secure our homeland from enemies, foreign and domestic. Indeed, this is a task for all of us, a task without end.

And so it goes. No doubt you have suggestions of your own to add to this list. So, the next time you hear someone ask why we need some government bureaucrat telling us how to spend our own money, gently remind him or her of the many essential services we receive that make America still the best place on earth to live and work and raise children.