How’s this way of thinking?

Published 12:50 am Friday, October 3, 2008

I’m a business owner who doesn’t mind paying for the services I get. My taxes pay for transportation infrastructure, social services, schools and open space/environment – those things that the private sector does not, by nature, want to invest in. Isn’t that what taxes are for?

I want good roads so my customers can get to me. I want good schools so that kids grow up to have incomes and can buy my products, not steal my tools to sell at the pawn shop. For similar reasons I want social services around for those who can’t (not won’t) take care of themselves. I have lived in countries where there are no such services-I know what I am talking about. And I like clean air, water and woods. They are quickly disappearing. How many of you can see how much this Valley has changed in just 20 years? As a Republican, I’d like it if we did a few things wisely for our own good; perhaps look down the road. Unlike the rhetoric we have heard recently, I’ve never thought it a simple concept that the economy is the best way to improve the environment. A clean environment does wonders for the economy, though – why do you think people want to move out here?

Anyway, so I give my tax money to be spent on these things. Sometimes I wish they had spent it on this rather than that, or the other thing rather than those things. But we elect these people to have a broader focus and to spend it wisely. The problem is not the amount of tax, it’s the waste, fraud and abuse – the pork-barrel stuff. Everyone seems to get their hands in the pot; just ask Tim Eyman. They have your money. You can write to them, talk to them, elect them out of office if you don’t like the way they spend it. But we can all stop whining about paying it!

And on the national side, when they offer to give my tax money back, it means they admit they can’t spend it as wisely as I can. Yet they stay in office. If they don’t know how to be efficient and thoughtful with my taxes, why don’t they resign and make room for someone who can – not try to bribe me with my own money?

Jonathan Seaton

Snoqualmie