Taxes?

[mrs.b]

Now, if someone argued (like Mrs. B) that the government could better (read: more efficiently) use our taxes, I'd say, "Amen." Like Merolpn, I don't stress over it. I carefully vote for officials (particularly at the local level), and then let it go. And Mrs. B., I wish your and your husband the best of luck starting a new business. I really admire people who take on challenges like that.

Oh, 99.9% of the time, I do not stress it either. If I did, I'd have stomach ulcers, be hoarse from shouting at brick walls, and it still would make no difference. When elections come, I research, vote where my conscience and logic take me (often in the minority when it comes to national elections in recent years), and hope for the best. It merely amuses me that people vote the same way time and again, then grow stunned and confused when things do not change. It's like a leak in the roof of a home. You could pretend it doesn't exist, pick the roofer that offers a cheap band-aid solution, pick the solution that boasts a permanent fix that has never been tried or tested but doesn't it look pretty?, or invest in a solution that might pinch the budget a bit but has been proven to solve the problem permanently. U.S. voting patterns say we will inevitably ignore the problem because we do not like the person that proposed it, vote for band-aids, or opt for the new and shiny untested solution, then scream and cry about how we need to pay thirty times the original permanent fix's price to gut that section of the home ten years later to repair rotted support structure about to come down on our heads.

Hindsight is always crystal clear, but Ben Franklin commented on the certainty of death and taxes, and no matter how much we look back and wish we (collectively) had lived or voted differently, both the reaper and the tax man will eventually come for all of us. Might as well do our best to make the most of our individual lives and hope the elected officials enjoy their government-funded vacations or get something out of the kickbacks to political supporters while the roads I drive on crumble.