Comments on: THE WEEK IN GREED #8: Explaining Taxes to a Five Year Old

By: Sara

Sara — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 21:13:25 +0000

It is a relief to read something that struggles with the truth. It is the truth about the truth, if you know what I mean…

By: Harry

Harry — Sun, 10 Jun 2012 18:04:18 +0000

Good piece Steve. Sometimes adults are just ignorant, sometimes racism is hidden under a different shell. Here is an excerpt from an interview with Robert Caro I read at The Guardian website : Chris McGreal…”in the US there is a rising tide of people who believe the very existance of government is the source of the country’s ills. Even the poor will tell you that if they could just get the government off their backs they’d be free and prosperous.
“That’s a product of the 60′s,” says Caro. “If you look at America on 22 November 1963 (the day of Kennedy’s assassination) it’s a very different place than the America you’re describing. That’s when Johnson becomes president. Five years later he leaves the presidency. America has changed into basically what you are talking about. Everyone thinks that distrust of government started under Nixon. But that is not true. It started under Johnson …and fell precipitously…And it has never come back. It’s a trend that, if you’re a liberal, is really discouraging.” Yes indeed, and Johnson is the guy who got (when in the Senate) minimum wage, disability, and the housing acts passed into law. As president he got the civil rights, voting rights, Medicare, Medicade , and education bills passed. But them ‘ol taxes…and Vietnam…

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 16:25:45 +0000

It sounds like your kid is smarter than about 50% of America.

By: Julie

Julie — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 15:52:36 +0000

I work in community organizing, and I am going to suggest my colleagues start mainlining all your week in greed columns. We heart taxes. We are in despair. When our tax systems are inadequate and regressive and the financial sector crashes our economy, the states have no money and have to lay off lots of people on Sesame Street. The stores on Sesame Street have no one to sell things to anymore. These WERE the people in your neighborhood. Now they’re unemployed and their houses are in foreclosure, and they’re moving to North Dakota to live packed in a $2,000/month trailer or under a bridge, hoping the oil boom will be their salvation. Lord help us.

By: Claire

Claire — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 01:00:30 +0000

Your wife has unemployment insurance wrong. The employers pay into the fund, not the employees. It doesn’t work like Social Security, where employees pay into funds all can draw from.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_States

By: Jessica B

Jessica B — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 20:34:43 +0000

“Many people say they are angry because the government is wasting money and giving money to people who do not deserve it. But more than that, they say they want to reduce the role of government in their own lives. They are frustrated that they need help, feel guilty for taking it and resent the government for providing it. They say they want less help for themselves; less help in caring for relatives; less assistance when they reach old age.”

That’s from a NYT article that has stuck in my head since I read it. Here’s a link to the entire article. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/us/even-critics-of-safety-net-increasingly-depend-on-it.html?pagewanted=all

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 20:09:29 +0000

Perhaps this is beyond your purview in this column but I can’t help but wish you’d spent a bit more time on the fact that an overwhelming majority of our tax money goes not to the collective good but to funding the military and prison systems. It seems that along with fear of the government, many harbor a deep fear of anyone who does not fit into their own conception of America or an America-controlled world, and so control of these unknown quantities becomes the only acceptable place for our tax money to go.

By: betsy

betsy — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 17:44:25 +0000

“We can’t quite face the truth of what we’ve become: an imperial bully in decline, a nation of couch potatoes who fancy ourselves rugged pioneers even as we cling to an inheritance of obscene luxury.”

SA, your prose makes me jump up and down. i love this column in general and this installment over and above.

By: Shelley

Shelley — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 16:51:19 +0000

Hmm. I never thought of shame over dependence as one possible cause of the otherwise inexplicable (to me) tendency of people to think the government is the enemy, rather than the only ally with the power to oppose corporate giants.

Everyone who teaches needs to make sure that the students in your class know how tax money is spent. Most of your students will never have thought about this.It’s surprising, but it explains a lot.