Taxes and What We Get for Them

Yesterday was tax day, and as usual the Tea Party and others rallied against our supposedly unreasonable tax burden, even though United States citizens pay some of the lowest taxes in the developed world.But tax time is also a good time to consider what we get out of those twenty-seventh-highest taxes in the world.For instance. Raleigh gets trashed by a tornado, so we need an enormous response by public agencies to help those harmed and dig our way out. Thank you, fire department; thank you, police department; thank you, Department of Transportation; thank you, taxes.The continuing crisis at Fukushima Daiichi has lost its central status (first to Libya, then the NCAA men's basketball final, now to economic concerns, next to anything else we can think of to take our minds off it), so knees have ceased to jerk quite as spasmodically regarding nuclear power.