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Freeloaders Without Shame

He is my new hero.  I don't know his name.
He is the head of a machinists' union, I think.

With regard to paying taxes, he said:
"You're doing your part for your country.
You are paying your way."

I am saddened by friends who say they hate to pay taxes.
They are good people.  They care about a lot of things
worth caring for.  But they hate paying taxes.

We have just had a rather heavy snowstorm,
and there is another, lighter storm, on the way.
The taxes we pay cleared the street in front of our house,
and the roads to almost everywhere.  There were fires
in St. Paul, as there were in many places, and our taxes
paid for the fire department to come and chip the hydrants
from the plowed snow, and to put out the fires.

Our taxes pay to educate our children, and to keep
the planes at the airport from colliding.  They pay for
the runways, too, and for a part of the cost of the planes.
It is the taxes we pay that forces chicken farms
to provide safe eggs, and that make all of our food safe.
When madmen pull out their guns, it is our taxes
that pay policemen and women to put their lives on the line.

Even with the regulations our taxes pay for, banks and
financial institutions are barely a notch or two above
criminal behavior with regard to our money.  Without
tax money, credit card companies would steal us blind.
They do a pretty good job of that, even with regulation.

Old people and children have food, paid for by our taxes.
It is the way we can do our part for our country.
It is the way we pay our way as responsible citizens.
We pay taxes to have libraries, to have emergency rooms,
to have health care, to be able to give our neighbors
money when they lose their jobs.  A little from everybody,
and a lot from those who have a lot, makes it possible
to build roads, and electrical grids, and treat sewage.

It is the way we do our part.  It is how we pay our way.
It is what we have to do, need to do, in good times
and in hard times.  There will be snow and fires.  There will be
children, and old people, and sickness, and sewage.

It is embarrassing to hear people say
they do not want to do their part for their country,
that they do not want to pay their way.
.

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