"but the top earners pay most of the taxes today--so you shouldn't raise their rates"

Every time anyone brings up the T word, Republican shills promptly quote the bogus statistic that the rich pay most of the taxes now, so how dare you propose socialist income redistribution?

First, they don't--you only get that stat by only considering the federal income tax--not state and local taxes, and not all those little items that are withheld from workers' paychecks. When you put everything together it turns out that most Americans pay a similar % of taxes. That is, we actually have a flat tax--we just get it from sleight of hand and loopholes and of course the corporate gains tax that lets billionaires pay lower taxes than their secretaries.

Second, they pay "so much" taxes because they have grabbed so much of America's economic output for themselves. From the end of WWII into the 1970s, big corporation CEOs got about 20X what their peons earned. Now it's over 400X--unlike that of any other rich country, but similar to countries like Mexico and Russia.

That's the "income redistribution" and "class war" that has been going on since Reagan's presidency.

Lastly, the Republican's tax theology is supported by bullhorning. For example, today on Fox News Sunday they had a Democratic and Republican junior Congressman on debate taxation. Fair enough. Only the moderator allowed the the Republican Congressman to constantly interrupt and talk over the Democratic Congressman, sometimes even double-teaming her.

So Anti-Tax Theology  is reinforced in the public forums by rhetorical dirty tricks.

What's wrong with wanting smaller taxes and government?

Smaller taxes and government are the keystones of American conservatism, right?

Many, many Americans certainly agree. It's practically in our DNA. At the time of the Founding Fathers most Americans were farmers, and were practically self-sufficient except for luxuries.

We needed government to defend us from military attack from abroad (or from Indians). We didn't want King George ordering us around from the other side of the Atlantic.

Okay, fine. And we certainly don't want a gigantic Soviet-style bureacracy telling us where to scratch and forcing our neighbors to spy on us (and us on them). And making us slaves to the State, with any initiative squelched, like the situation today in, say, North Korea.

So--what's the right balance today?

Isn't it reasonable to say that we need enough government to protect us against whoever and whatever seriously threatens us, and to maintain our competitiveness in the global economy, and no more?

Now--does that include the postal service? If it's run as a for-profit enterprise, it will make sense to cut out rural deliveries nationwide, and only deliver mail where there's enough volume to make it profitable--mainly in urban areas.

I live in an urban area, so my ox wouldn't be gored if we did that, but I'm willing to pay a bit extra for postage stamps in order to maintain truly nationwide service. I've been in countries where mail service is iffy at best. They're third world countries. I'd prefer not to live in a third world country.

So what else do we need (besides enough military to defend us against invasion)?

Well, suppose you discover that you can light your tapwater on fire. (I've seen footage of this.) And you discover that it's almost certainly because of frakking nearby. Frakking is a natural gas drilling procedure that runs a line underground, then pumps a mixture of water and toxic chemicals through it at high pressure, fracturing the surrounding rock and releasing the natural gas. Unfortunately the process can also pollute the water table--hence the flammable tapwater.

And then you discover that your state legislature passed a law exempting natural gas producers from getting prosecuted--or sued--for contaminating water tables with frakking.

And that this has being going on in many of the 35 states where frakking is being done.

That's where you need an entity as powerful as the natural gas producers who have outsourced their problems to you--and nothing but the national government can do that.

The Framers didn't envision natural gas producers harming thousands of rural homeowners. But they did envision the country having needs they couldn't envision. So they made the Constitution more like a stem cell than like a whole creature--the Constitution's brevity makes it flexible enough to enable government to tackle unforeseen threats like this.

Now of course the more government you have, the more taxes you get.

But taxes don't matter.

What I mean is that your income, your safety, and your discretionary purchasing power are what matter. If I pay a lot of taxes and have X amount of discretionary income, or pay a lot less taxes but have to buy more necessities--like health insurance--and have Y amount of discretionary income, and Y is less than X, I'd be better off paying more taxes and less of the rest.

This isn't an argument for the dreaded Welfare State that maintains an entire class of people on the dole for all their lives.

But without a powerful federal government that provides reasonable regulation of the activities of the rich and powerful, what you get--inevitably--is a class of people who live off you all their lives--the hyper-rich who take advantage of lack of government regulation to hitch a ride on the tax dollar gravy train, and then take your pocketbook for much, much more of a ride than all the inner city welfare bums in the country put together.

As Wall Street's "Masters of the Universe" recently demonstrated.

And you should consider the fact that such "Masters of the Universe" ceaselessly lobby Congress and propagandize the American public to remove all business regulations, working on you to think as if you're a farmer in 18th century America and "government" = King George.

Bottom line: there is always power. If government wields less power, be totally assured that someone else will grab whatever power the government surrendered, and often use it against you.

It's a big, complex world today. Russian criminal rings probe the Internet and the e-mailverse nonstop, trying to steal your ID and every cent you have. Illegal aliens may be using your Social Security number right now, and you might not discover the problem until you retire and try to start collecting Social Security. Today, here in Calfornia, the giant power utility Pacific Gas & Electric has placed an initiative on our ballot with the sole purpose of making it vastly more difficult for municipalities to stop using PG&E--and backing it up with a saturation ad campaign.

I realize you may have had a bad experience with surly, indifferent government employees (who may not evens peak intelligible English) the last time you went to the Post Office or the Department of Motor Vehicles.

On the other hand, I remember the time my spouse had to choose between 10 days in the hospital or 10 days of anticoagulant shots, and we chose the latter, in part to save our healthcare provider the enormous cost of that hospitalization--which they would have been on the hook for--and yet they refused to pay the $1,500 the shots cost...because they could get away with it, and it helped their bottom line.

Nongovernmental entities are trying to rob you or shortchange you or overcharge you or even kill you (by refusing to pay for needed medical care) all the time, even right under you nose.

So when all those dangers vanish, I'll get on the "small government/taxes" bandwagon.

In other words, Jefferson was a nice guy, and really smart--but Hamilton was more correct, in the long run.

Why should my taxes go to things I consider immoral?

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund abortion.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund the Iraq war.

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund central payer-administered healthcare.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund the "war on drugs."

Conservatives object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund public school sex education.
Liberals object vehemently to their tax dollars going to fund abstinence-only "sexless education."

I heard a conservative caller on a talk show state flatly "I don't want my tax dollars to go to someone with a pre-existing medical condition."

Both liberals and conservatives talk endlessly about their rights--and the rights of those they favor--but they only talk about the obligations of the other side, and of those they don't favor.

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But beyond our rights and obligations, all these demands about how tax money is to be spent/not spent raise deeper issues that I think matter even more than the hot button topics you see on placards and bumper stickers.

Which is--every time someone makes demands linked to taxation, they're saying:

"I have the right to specify what my tax dollars will and won't be spent on."

How would a democratic country apply that principle? These zealots are proposing that every taxpayer has the right to submit a list with his/her tax return, ordering the government to allocate that person's tax dollars exactly as that taxpayer demands.

Think about the bureaucratic nightmare. It would have to be tallied by hand, which would lead to errors, which would lead to demands for recounts.

And even if we could adminster such a system, it cuts the legs out from under the essence of democracy: the losing side takes its lumps.

When Bush won in 2000 by--as roughly half of Americans believe--Supreme Court fiat--you didn't see militias going to war with government troops. The losing side griped loudly but ultimately they accepted the results. Conversely, when the Antichrist won in 2008--according to a substantial minority of Ameircans--again you didn't see warfare on the streets.

Yet we keep getting these bogus tax dollar allocation demands.

I say to both sides: There has never been a single instant in American history when everyone agreed on everything government did with everyone's tax dollars. We all agree, as adults, to sacrifice some of our individual freedom in exchange for the benefits of being citizens of the most powerful and prosperous nation in history.

So grow up.

If you want to change law, campaign lawfully to change it. But stop talking about "your" tax dollars. Those tax dollars aren't yours. They're everyone's, just as you own a share of everyone else's tax dollars, as mediated by our elected government, operating under our Constitution.

And if you find another country is run more to your liking, feel free to move there (if they'll take you). Go. We have plenty of residents. We can spare you.