Why I Love Taxes -- And Most Americans Do, Too

Over the last 40 decades, conservatives have launched a concerted attack on taxes with such success that now candidates of both parties reliably compete with each other to prove who is more anti-tax. When John McCain and Sarah Palin attack taxes, that's one thing. But when Barack Obama starts doing it, we have a big problem.

Conventional wisdom has it that Americans hate taxes. But the conventional wisdom is wrong.

"Nobody likes taxes," Obama said during his third debate with McCain. "I would prefer that none of us had to pay taxes, including myself." Sarah Palin, during the Vice Presidential debate, said there is nothing patriotic about paying taxes. Well, I like taxes and am glad to be fortunate enough to pay them and I think April 15th is the most patriotic day of the year. And I'm not the only one. Polls show voters like taxes, too, so maybe politicians left, right and center should stop attacking taxes and instead start talking about the good they do.

So here are the three reasons why I love taxes -- and, as it turns out, why the majority of Americans agree.

1. Taxes are a down payment on the common good

Public schools, roads and bridges, drinking water, national parks -- we like these things and, polls show, we like the idea of our tax dollars helping make these things better.

In a great response to Sarah Palin's remark that paying taxes is not patriotic, Thomas Friedman wrote:

What an awful statement. Palin defended the government's $700 billion rescue plan. She defended the surge in Iraq, where her own son is now serving. She defended sending more troops to Afghanistan. And yet, at the same time, she declared that Americans who pay their fair share of taxes to support all those government-led endeavors should not be considered patriotic.

According one national poll, a plurality of Americans think the biggest problem facing their local public schools is a lack of funding, and they support more federal money for public schools. According to a transportation poll, a majority of Americans think our roads need to be improved and would support an increased gas tax to do so. And notably, most Americans think (http://www.pollingreport.com/budget.htm) the share they pay in taxes is fair and about right.

Several years ago, I was buying one of those tax preparation software programs from a local big box store. The salesperson said, "Ugh, taxes."

And I replied, "Actually, I love paying taxes."

"Really?"

"Yeah. How else do you think we have libraries and street lights and clean water and the Internet?"

"I never thought of it that way," she demurred.

Taxes are how we pay for the things we, as a community, need. Think of taxes as our national membership card to the Costco called government.

2. Taxes fund government, and government is good

The conservative attack on taxes is really an attack on government. They want us to believe that government should be judged by its most aberrant inefficiencies and most extreme mistakes. They want us to ignore all the things we like, all the things that salesperson forgot about, how each of us is where we are today because of the help of government -- whether it's the roads that got us to work or the federally subsidized loans that paid our way through college, the unemployment benefits that helped our family through a rough time or the social security we're counting on for our retirement. Government has positively touched each and every single one of our life stories. Conservatives talk about "starving the beast" of government, but given how much government has fed and nurtured all of us, we'd only be starving ourselves.

Politicians of all stripes need to vigorously defend government. When Barack Obama talks about taking a scalpel to the federal budget, not a hatchet, he should go one step further and say why, reminding Americans that especially in a time of economic crisis, government is more important than ever. Want to re-regulate Wall Street? Want to extend unemployment benefits and help homeowners renegotiate their mortgages? Want to make college more affordable? Want to lower gas prices and have alternative energy? Every single one of these goals goes against the instincts and incentives of the free market. For the problems we as a nation is now facing, government is the solution.