"What If We All Stopped Paying Taxes?" Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings have wondered aloud. The question was quite a sensible one over the past eight years as our tax money was squandered on an irresponsible and poorly managed war - all the more galling given the loose methods and looser morals that permitted those most able to pay them to get out of their duty. The conservatives who call me unpatriotic for being a gay peacenik ought to point their fingers at their wealthy comrades with tax shelters in the goddamn Cayman Islands. They are the ones who demonstrably do not love America.Happily, there's a new sheriff in town, and it's easier to feel good about paying taxes. "WhatIif We All Stopped Paying Taxes?" is no longer the operative question. ("I'm Payin' Taxes, What Am I Buyin'" is a more apt query today, but alas, that Fred Wesley & the JB's song does not exist on YouTube.) The poet Nikki Giovanni once declared in a lecture I attended that it is a privilege to pay taxes, to be a part of a system that educates our children and paves our roads and heals our infirm. I've often thought about that notion, and I'm thinking about it today. April 15, as we scramble to file our returns, is for many a sad and stressful day, but it actually reminds us Americans of some of the ways that we're all in this together.
On the other hand, April 15 also gives us the worst Schoolhouse Rock song ever.
PS: Giving the gas face to anyone engaging in Fox News's "tea party" faux-nomenon.
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