How the US Government Could Save Money--and Save You on Your Taxes

Conservatives don't want to pay taxes that fund social-welfare programs. I know this because I have heard at least a few individuals say that to me, face-to-face.

They say that money is taken from them in the form of taxes and given to people who don't want to work. (At heart this idea is racist: They are really talking about African-Americans and the sentiment relies on the old racist canard that African-Americans don't want to work--never mind pointing out to them that huge numbers of job applicants have turned out, with lines going around the block, when there has been a widely announced hiring event in their communities, as shown in photos and video clips.

I will tell you, them, whomever—where tax dollars are really going to waste.

For one thing, the United States sends billions of dollars to the government of Afghanistan; and in turn, in the course of just one year, a billion dollars of Afghan aid was "lost to corruption." For another thing, Afghan President Karzai is an opportunist who has given power—and immunity from prosecution—to men who in another time and place would be counted as war criminals.

Much as I might support the aspirations of women in Afghanistan to have those rights which Taliban rule in Afghanistan would deny them, I see a relic of the cold war here: The United States got involved in Afghanistan after the country was wrecked and ruined by civil wars, fighting between war lords and factions that followed the withdrawal of the Soviets. (To remember our history: In Vietnam, the French lost and pulled out and America thought it could do better, but could not and lost also. Similarly, the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and apparently the US felt it could do better, and the final results of that may not be in but it does not look optimistic.)

So, I have to suspect that US efforts in Afghanistan have been a waste of your and my tax dollars. And here is another one: Businesses like Walmart, and fast-food companies like McDonald's who pay their workers inadequate wages.

These companies are allowed to pay their workers a minimum wage which has not gone up, in real dollars (or even in nominal dollars) for decades.

A Walmart worker who is single earns a wage which puts her at about the poverty level. If a Walmart, or McDonald's, worker earns minimum wage but supports a family of four on his or her income, that worker's income is supplemented by aid from the government which costs us an average of about $1700 for that family. So, what Walmart or McDonald's does not pay the worker, you and I pay.

Walmart is making huge profits. Basically every American taxpayer, by having to add to the insufficient income that the Walmart or McDonald's worker receives from her employer, is paying his taxes ultimately into the pockets of the owners of Walmart and McDonald's. It would save us, the middle-class Americans who pay taxes, money if those companies were compelled to pay a living wage.

Copyright © 2013.