Stewardship

Many people have commented that they'd be happy to pay an extra tax to support Durham's schools, but they understand that there might be many people who would suffer under this added tax burden.

I've been thinking about this.

In asking for a tax increase, am I simply doing what is easy for me. Afterall, I'm just another amazingly wealthy liberal who is blessed with the financial security of a wife who provides for me ;)

But you know what? This isn't about who has what and who doesn't. This is about making an investment in our children and in our country's future. This is about stewardship and taking care of what we have. If you let rot get into your house because you fail to save enough to make needed repairs, the rot will bring your house down around you.

Why does this seem so old fashioned?

I remember my father, a teacher with the financial pressure of supporting three children, a wife, and a mother in a nursing home. Every year in the early Spring,as the trees began to bloom outside, he'd sit at our dining room table with papers scattered about. For several days in a row, he'd bring out a big calculator with a paper roll on one end and a screen that was made up of big red lights. He'd mysteriously punch keys and shuffle papers as the lunch box sized machine spit out columns of numbers. Ever curious, I'd ask him what he was doing-- what I really wanted to do was play with that machine! Well... it was tax season! He'd show me his paystubs and bills. The file with all his reciepts from trips would look like some horrible lasagna casserole gone wrong.

What I don't ever remember him telling me was that he was looking for a tax loophole or a way to dodge his responsibility. Never once did he complain about the beaurocrats in Washington trying to take his hard earned money (even though, as a lifelong Democrat, I often heard him complain about Ronald Reagan). No he explained to me how taxes are the way a civilized society invests and pays for services that it values. He would talk to me about schools and firefighters, about the social workers and parole officers that provided much needed services. Would he have loved to purchase a second car? Sure. The vinyl seats of our K-car sure would burn the backs of my legs on the sweltering southern summer days. But...

He didn't begrudge his tax burden. He did and does see it as an honor and priveledge of living in such a great country as ours. This wasn't unique to my father a lifelong Democrat. Was it something about that generation? My wife's grandmother, Marion Sjostrom, used to worry about the estate tax and her ability to provide for her children after she died. But never once did I hear her begrudge the system of taxation we have in America. We pay because we are stewards of this country. All of us. Rich and poor. Black and White. Immigrant and native. We don't pay because we can. We pay because it is right.

So, when I ask people to consider paying more taxes, I see it in this light. I'm celebrating the foresight and fiscal discipline that a tax increase would require and the future rewards it would bring. If you don't do the preventative maintenance on your home, it will fall down around you.