[Vision2020] Taxpayer Rights

[Paul Rumelhart]

Donovan Arnold wrote:
> The Wietz lawsuit raises some important questions in my mind, 
> particularly regarding taxpayers and their rights.
>  
> Is it fair, first off, to have a vote to pay taxes for an indefinite 
> amount of time? Seems rather unfair, voting to tax people in the 
> future that have not been given the right to decide what tax level 
> they feel is fair. Being told, "People in the past already voted and 
> so you don't get to decide, ever, unless of course you want to raise 
> the tax rate."--hardly seems reasonable to me.

These new people would be people that have moved into the area, right?  
Is it fair for them to say "I wasn't here to vote for the taxes in this 
county, I shouldn't be required to pay them?"

>  
> Second, at what point is the minority tax payer able to rebel against 
> the taxes levied upon him/her by the majority? What rights do they 
> have to protect them from out right exploitation and thievery by the 
> tax levying democratic majority?

The "minority tax payer" voted against the tax and lost.  Sucks to be 
them.  I feel their pain - I voted against our current President twice 
and lost both times.  However, I don't see how they could argue that 
since they voted against the tax but lost that they shouldn't be 
obligated to pay it.  There is always a winner and a loser.  A system 
where only the winners have to abide by the rules they voted on would 
obviously not work.  You might as well just skip straight to anarchy.

>  
> Third, are property taxes even fair or just? Taxing people on where 
> they live, even knocking those on fixed incomes right outta their homes?

This one I'm not so sure about.  I think the reasoning is that the 
property owners have a fixed stake in the area and are therefore less 
transient. 

>  
> Finally, placing the entire burden of running schools, the largest 
> expense, squarely on the back of property owners seems rather harsh, 
> is not greatly unjust.
>  
> What do you think? Am I wrong to think that there should be some 
> limits placed on what the democratic majority can do to the minority 
> taxpayer that just feels completely robbed and stripped of the fruits 
> of their hard labor? Is it possible Gerry Wietz and other feel the 
> same way?

I don't know how Gerry Wietz feels, but he's perfectly capable of 
telling us if he felt we ought to know.  I'm also quite sure that the 
entire burden is not on the backs of the property owners.  However, I 
think you're looking at the whole tax thing from the wrong angle.  We 
aren't a bunch of individual islands here, we are a community.  We don't 
just happen to live near each other - we depend upon each other.  We 
have decided to gather our resources and, instead of simply doing what 
we want with our own resources, we have decided to give a portion of 
them to a central group that uses those resources for the betterment of 
the community.  Instead of every person having to find a way to get 
water to their dwellings, we have a system that everyone chips in to pay 
for that provides that water (at least where we are clustered closest 
together).  Instead of each person hacking a path through the woods to 
get where they want to go, we pool resources to provide common paths 
that are much finer than most of us could provide on our own.  Instead 
of each person having to educate their kids individually, without other 
resources, we provide a central place where professionals in the field 
of education can teach our children.  These centers of education also 
gain knowledge on their own (at least at higher levels), and give it 
back to the greater community.  I don't have to come up with the best 
way to purify water or to grow crops or to fight disease on my own - I 
can gain from the knowledge that others have provided and the 
experiments they have performed instead of having to reinvent it all on 
my own.

Yes, taxes can be hard on the poor.  But so is living on your own 
without the benefits of society.  The poor rely upon the largess of the 
more wealthy - without it, they wouldn't be poor they would be 
statistics.  The richest few can afford to run their own water mains, 
build their own roads, pay our best and brightest to educate their kids, 
and fund their own research and keep it to themselves.  It's the poor 
that benefit the most from the pooling of resources, so why shouldn't 
they give what resources they are able to give?

The problems come in when you have more than one idea about how to 
educate our kids, where best to use our pooled resources, etc, etc.  The 
simplest and somewhat intuitive way is to simply ask everybody and see 
if there is a consensus.  However, I don't see how someone who voted in 
the minority can think they have the right to stop giving resources to 
the pool and still use the water that is pumped to them, drive on the 
roads, send their kids to school, and use the knowledge others have 
gained.  I guess if the minority tax payer feels completely robbed, then 
they can simply wander off into the woods and survive as they may.  If 
they don't think that this whole pooling of resources thing is working 
out, then they can eschew all the benefits of it and do as they please.

Being somewhat of a liberal and living in this neocon country, I've lost 
more elections than I've won.  However, I'm still benefiting from our 
society and it's resources.

Paul

>  
> Best,
>  
> Donovan 
>
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