[lbo-talk] going galt

[shag carpet bomb]

At 01:56 PM 6/16/2010, Alan Rudy wrote:
>It boggles the mind.  Many of my students, most of whom will soon be people
>complaining about high taxes and getting nothing for them have absolutely no
>idea what people get for their taxes.  They can't even bring to mind roads,
>road maintenance and snow/flood/etc. clearance, airports, DMVs, truck and
>rail transportation regulations, inspections and enforcement; parks,
>recreation programs,  park maintenance and natural resources enforcement;
>schools (K-6, 7-9, 10-12, community colleges, public universities, teachers,
>faculty, administrators, building and grounds maintenance), libraries and
>museums; police, fire, EMTs, public defense, judges, courts, jails, and
>parole officers - much less army, navy, air force, marines, coast guard,
>national guard, FBI, CIA, School of the Americas and veterans affairs (from
>VA Hospitals to the GI Bill); public health responses, assessment,
>anticipation, doctors, nurses, hospitals; water treatment and delivery,
>sewage collection and treatment, electrical generation and/or regulation,
>waste collection and disposal, and all manner of pollution testing and
>enforcement; communications infrastructures, development and regulation;
>labor law and occupational safety and health regulation and enforcement -
>much less the bureaucracies and personnel that provide unemployment
>insurance and welfare programs; (what was supposed to be) banking and
>financial regulation, enforcement and insurance, much less savings and
>checking account protections and, most important, all the ways these things
>feed back on one another - when done properly - to produce the more or less
>reliable and high standard of living comfortable people experience... AND,
>they have no understanding of how hard working, understaffed and deserving
>of decent salaries, benefits and better working conditions public employees
>are (despite the fact that many of them are the children of such people -
>though, to be honest, state workers in MI are often whiny about taxes and
>point fingers at other lateral and lower (rather than higher-level) state
>employees, too.

no shit. On the facebook page for a local alt rag, we were having a 
discussion about the need for bike lanes and better bike parking in the 
area. Some guy pipes up to say that when the bikers are willing to pay for 
it, he'll support it too. since FB isn't a place where it's worth my time 
to argue, I shut up but I wanted to ask him about all the stuff he gets for 
his taxes that he might take advantage of more than others. Or all the 
things taxes pay for that he doesn't take advantage of at all, but which 
ultimately make others' *and* his life better.

has anyone ever 'followed' around an ordinary person and looked at the 
things she does every day that are underwritten by taxes to analyze how 
much she pays in taxes and how much she gets back?