Simpler ain't always better

This is going to be an interesting couple of years, politically. The Tea Party movement, which is fueled by nothing more than anger at things that range from vague to nonexistent, is now faced with something it never really wanted to do, that being governing. There are many avenues of stupidity to explore in the tea party "platform," if you can call it that, but I'd like to focus for a moment on what is the central point of their so-called "governing philosophy" (I'm already tired of using quotation marks, so excuse any format weirdness to come). That is to CUT TAXES.

Clearly, nobody likes taxes. They take money out of your pocket for, well, who knows what? The thing is, though, that taxes pay for stuff you want. Roads, airports and public transit, police, sewer, garbage disposal, schools (I am purposely leaving national defense aside, but that too). Public services. Things that are paid for and used by the public at large. This is by and large the kind of stuff you pay for when you pay taxes. But these are generalized things, things that you have no ownership feelings toward, as opposed to your money, which is, well, YOUR MONEY!

So the debate, if one is going about it in a logical and truthful fashion, as opposed to what the current Teapublican Party is doing, is between taxes and services. It's always been about taxes and services because that what taxes pay for. And at least in the current environment, it's cutting taxes versus maintaining or improving services. This is a debate that cutting taxes usually wins in the public forum. Why? Because it's a better argument? Absolutely not. Because it's a simpler argument.

Taxes are money directly away from you. Services are shared, and nobody uses all of them. People take services for granted. You use them when you need them. This makes it way too easy for tax cutters to give a laundry list of services, none of which could possibly apply to any one person or small group. So those people can conclude that services are wasteful and needless, because every such laundry list contains many services that they don't personally need at that moment. It's not technically lying, but it's not truthful either.

It's pretty much impossible for anyone to quantify the value of the services that they receive for their tax dollars, both because there are so many of them and because they're not stuff you can go out and buy. Taxes are easily quantified. Argument over, because the other side of it is too complicated to analyze on TV. I worked in marketing long enough to trust the consumer to make choices that are the best for them, But that's assuming that they have the information they need to make a proper decision. That's simply not the case here, where tax cut shouting drowns out everything else.

It's pretty frustrating for someone who is trying to look at this in a thoughtful manner. The first sign of the ramifications of tax cuts as a core policy is taking place in Nassau County, NY, where the newly elected tea partier in charge cut taxes, in spite of a budget deficit, sending the county to the brink of bankruptcy. And it's only a month after the election. And he's only doing what he promised to do.

So how long before people understand the consequences of what they're doing and learn to properly value the services they expect and want? That's what'll have to happen before people start making wise choices at the ballot box. I'm not holding my breath.