Tax Day is fast approaching. It’s only a couple of months away. I have begun preparations and, as usual, feel the need to vent. Here goes.

Why is April 15 not a national holiday? In any sensible country the people would have demanded long ago that on the day that we pay our national dues we take the day off. Are Americans sheep? What’s wrong with us? So far as I know ours is about the only country in the world where stretches of up to two months go by without a single holiday. I remember being asked by a co-worker why we were getting the day off some Friday. I told her it was Cesar Chavez Day. She wanted to know why we were getting the day off for a boxer. I was stunned into a sad realization: Americans think there should be a justification for a day off. Why any working person would even wonder why there was a holiday is beyond me. But if it’s a justification they want, what better one than Tax Day. I wouldn’t mind taking the day off for Attila the Hun. It would be on a Monday, but instead of calling it Monday we would call it … yep … Hunday. We should have a holiday that has no name and no justification. It would be ‘just because.’ I think it might help get people moving in the right direction. Why do we get the day off? Just because.

I don’t mind paying taxes. It seems more sensible to me to call them dues. Taxes have gotten a bad name. Calling them dues might help. And what’s the difference between taxes and dues anyway? I’d have to be a selfish jerk to mind paying taxes. I get more money in a day than people in 27 countries get in an entire year. In a year I get more money than probably 99% of the people on the planet. I’ve never wanted for food, shelter or clothing. I’ve been educated, immunized and protected from flood and fire. What do these people who complain about paying taxes want?

A lot of people complain about having to hand over hard earned money. Right wing politicians tell them that they should be able to keep their hard earned money because they will spend it more wisely than the government. What are they going to do with it? Build universities, fire departments, national parks, public health systems, roads, airports, battleships? It’s ridiculous thinking but it’s very appealing. And what makes this money hard earned? I’ve seen a lot of people who do really hard work and don’t get squat for it. They are all over the world. And most of the people complaining about the loss of hard earned money don’t do anything or, as they like to put it, they have put their money to work for them. I want to know: Is it hardworking money? If we were going to go easier on hard earned money, the rich would see their taxes skyrocket and the guy picking lettuce wouldn’t pay diddley.

People talk about keeping the money they made. What are they counterfeiters? Made? They didn’t make it. They got it. Somebody gave it to them. At the end of the day very few of them could actually point to something and say that’s what I made today and this is the money I got for it. And the more money they get the less likely it is that there is something left standing that they could point to. Guy says: “I did very well today. Dollar went up two points and I made a killing.” What did he do? Did he make anything happen? Did he do anything that could even remotely be called a contribution to economic output? Was his killing hard earned?

Some people have very high minded reasons why they shouldn’t have to pay taxes. Hang with me on this one. If they got to keep the money they get, then they would invest it and whomever they invest it with would have money to give to other people. It’s the job creation thing. Of course, most investment money doesn’t come from actual people, natural persons. It comes from make believe people called corporations. And usually they give it to themselves so they can get even more money. Now these make believe people that can’t vote get to give money to politicians and if we had more justices like the majority we have on the Supreme Court they would soon enough have the right to vote too. But, to the extent that this whole thing isn’t a digression, I digress. This reason for not paying taxes – the job creation reason – is false. Most jobs are created by small businesses just as most jobs are lost by small businesses. Small businesses don’t have investors by and large. They have loans. Loans are not investments. But people like to have high minded reasons for being selfish. There are a few who just come straight out and tell you that selfish is good. But most like a high minded smoke screen.

There is another group that says it doesn’t want to pay taxes because the government is wasteful. People in this group would rather waste the money themselves. I don’t understand these people. If the government wastes the money, you have someone to blame. If you waste it, you have to blame yourself. There is probably some latin term for the fallacy implicit in this argument, but I don’t know what it is. So I have to do this the hard way. The idea is that you can eliminate waste by cutting the available resources. Give them less money. Cut the waste. Maybe this makes sense. It’s certainly simple and seems to make some sense. But it isn’t what happens in the real world. In the real world the percentage of waste is rarely reduced and often increased. True, there’s less waste because there is less money. Unfortunately there is also less good service because there is less money. The baby has been thrown out with the bath water. You eliminate waste in any large organization, public or private, piece by piece. It is a slow, stressful and unending process. There is no magic bullet. Cut the money and you are cutting your own throat.

In my group we don’t mind paying dues we’d just like to get more for it. I’d like more education, more health services, cheaper utilities, better air and water, more money in my social security check, dental included in medicare, and more public transport. I don’t need any more nuclear weapons. I’ve got plenty of those. We keep paying our dues. We wouldn’t be investing the money anyway. We are not deprived.

Of course this has been random and disconnected. That’s what venting is. I feel better. In fact I think there should be a holiday just for venting. People need to vent. They could get together at parks or homes or bars, put the game on tv just for background and vent, vent, vent. For couples it would be sort of like a Valentine’s Day in reverse. Instead of exchanging useless trinkets and pretending to swoon they could spend the day venting at each other. The deal is that you would have to take it. You couldn’t get all mad and walk away. All you could do is vent back. What do you think? Once a year? Leap years?