Shinn the Writer

No Taxes!

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This is an essay in two parts, only indirectly related to each other. The first concerns the recent “No Kings Day” events of March28. I have made it a point to attend these, adding my presence to the headcount if nothing else. The first NK day saw several rallies in my area. I chose the one in nearby Albany. It was very satisfying. The next one came just months later, but this time, my home town of Kensington decided to organize one of its own. I was asked to play. 

 

The event was well attended, but I felt a bit like a fish out of water. As a singer/guitarist, my style is pretty laid back. The occasion really called more for a rabble-rouser. The event organizer (a good friend of mine) gave me the same assessment when she told me she’d asked a group of other musicians to provide tunes to help spark the flames of free expression.

 

But I now realized that I faced a dilemma… the Kensington and Albany rallies were set for the same time. Which should I go to? Would the overall No Kings effort be better served with fewer events attended by more people, or with more events attended by fewer people each? 

 

I really didn’t know, but in the end, the decision was made for me A friend wanted to go to the Albany locale. The company was good, but I was a little disappointed at the turnout when I thought back to the first one. It dawned on me that if the Kensington crowd had been in Albany instead, it would have filled it out quite a bit.

 

What I didn’t find out until later, was that I had been wrong about the time of the Kensington rally – the emails sent out informing people of the times and locales of several rallies had given different times for Kensington. It turned out that the correct time didn’t conflict with the Albany event. I could have (and likely would have) attended both.

 

And this time I had even more to protest. TAXES! It’s bad enough that I have to help pay for all the shortcomings of our current government, but did the IRS and/or Turbo Tax have to make it so hard to figure out how much I owe?

 

I’m indeed one of those rare folks who doesn’t really mind paying my taxes. I even accept that of late my taxes are paying for lots of things they shouldn’t be paying for. If you think of it, that’s really the essence of democracy. We compromise, and in so doing we wind up paying for lots of stuff we don’t think we should. Republicans don’t think they should be paying for Medicare, Democrats don’t think we should be paying for our new war in Iran, but we generally pay our taxes and move on.