Saturday, January 2, 2016

Does Grover Norquist Think Government is Free?

I screen-capped this instead of embedding because some of the responses to this inanity are pretty damn good, and maybe Norquist will realize he's wrong and delete it--but all the criticisms still stand. The first assertion "Those who run our government do not pay taxes" is just silly if he means that "politicians do not pay taxes" because we know that from the President of the US on down, they do. So that's just plain wrong.

The second line: "Politicians and government workers are paid more in your tax dollars than they pay in" is also crap--they are paid a salary and benefits that they work for. Taxpayers are their customers. And they pay a share of their income in taxes--not unlike other people, but just like other people. Using Norquist's construction, it's almost like he's implying that people should work for the government for free.

Pick up trash, fight crime, process tax returns or drivers license applications or even defend our country in war--for free? Who is doing this for free?

It is true that with benefits and civil service protections for employment, government workers may have more security than private sector employees--but that's because we're unionized.  If any worker thinks they like a better deal, tell you what? Organize. But in the meanwhile, pretending that government workers are getting a cushy deal where they get paid tax money for nothing is absurd.

Once again, this is the worldview of a person whose ideas about taxes is resentment over a bite out of his ice cream cone as a little child. Grow up, Grover.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We should take all the Congressmen and Senators off the Federal Payroll and let the states pay them for their services. They should not have a federal retirement but should have to have the option to retire on Social Security and their healthcare could be provided by the ACA. After all, all men are created equal and they are not more equal than the rest of us.

Jerry L Shepherd

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