Tax Day… You’re Welcome!

To the Editor:

Nearly 48 percent of you don’t know who I am, but I impact your life everyday and you never get a chance to thank me so I thought I would introduce myself to you. I am one of the 52 percent who pays your federal taxes for you and the rest of those citizens who apparently don’t have to “pay their fair share” to our federal government. I just wanted to say how satisfying it is to know that my hard-earned money will soon go straight to the federal abyss (i.e., the government’s General Account) and you don’t have to contribute anything because... well because that is what us one percenters are for right? The fact that 48 percent of my fellow citizens can rest easy for another year because I choose to go to college and graduate school in order to join the dwindling ranks of taxpayers makes me feel patriotic to the core. Similarly, the fact that I will continue paying my student loans for years to come while the federal government begins forgiving the loans of others (probably those who don’t pay taxes!) is apparently the burden I must bear in this equal society.

Sometimes I think the fact that I have served in the military for nearly 16 years now (including a few dicey tours where the locals couldn’t help but shoot at us all the time) would somehow mitigate a portion of my taxpaying burden, but no... the government says I must press on because there are just so many other citizens who simply don’t deserve to pay because of an ever-growing variety of reasons. So, as you rest easy another year, comfortable in the realization that others are picking up your slack, I send off my tax bill with the knowledge that a majority of it will likely be wasted on social programs that the government runs poorly or shouldn’t be involved in at all. The best part... next year it is expected that the ranks of nonpayers will likely increase to 49 percent! I guess I’ll just have to work harder in 2012 to make sure that others can rest easy once again.

The reality of this situation is that it is not funny... it is criminal. It is morally reprehensible to expect a dwindling number of citizens to pay the freight for the majority of our society, but that is where we are. It is sickening that this administration has chosen to not only expand on this “state-dependency” construct (welfare spending is up 41 percent in just the past three years) but to vilify those citizens who actually contribute the most. And it is pathetic that so many citizens believe that the government should provide everything they need.

Lt Col R.D. Franson

USMC

15 Winding Brook Road, Newtown                               April 18, 2012