We can’t keep defaulting on payment for civilization

Thomas Jefferson famously said: “I love paying taxes. With them, I buy civilization.” Police. Firefighters. Schools. Education. Roads and bridges. Social Security and Medicare for our old ones. Health care for children and families in poverty. Social workers to protect our children and vulnerable adults. Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard. Utility and construction workers to maintain sewers and the White House. National parks and their staffs. Prison staff. Yes, that civilization.

What in the world ever made people think that one day we could declare victory forever and say “No more taxes ever”?

For 30 years in South Carolina we said that about education, the roads and child protective services, among other things. Now all three are among the worst in the nation. Next up, health care. If the Congress cuts Medicaid, we’ll have to triage reduced funds: seniors in nursing homes, or children in poverty? The chronically ill, or the acutely ill? Expensive cancer medication for women, or for children?

Conservatives are fond of comparing the country’s finances to a family’s. The family can’t spend more than it makes, they say righteously, and neither can our country. So we must reduce spending, which in their calculus justifies letting civilization be repossessed by chaos.

Return to that family as a metaphor. Say there are six children. Say the parents make enough money to support four children, but not six. Republicans’ logic would tell them, “Sorry, you have to choose which two of your six children will be given away or allowed to die.”

You know what those parents would say. “Let our children die? No. We’ll find some other solution.” A second job for one of the parents. Live in their car. Accept charity from their church. In other words, increase resources to “afford” all six children.

We must reject the idea that the way to keep our financial house tidy is sacrificing some of our family members. Like the family, we have the obligation to care for those who can’t care for themselves. And repair our infrastructure at the same time.

Face it: We must resume payments on civilization, and we’ll have to raise taxes to do it.