Cut those taxes - but then what?

Cutting taxes is all the rage today. Bush wants to do it, Congress wants to do it, the Republican candidates want to do it.
Fine, but then who pays for all the things people want, need, or have to put up with? Americans, at least the majority of them, don't want to pay taxes but they do want all the good stuff provided to them by those tax dollars. Good roads and safe bridges, for example. People who scream the loudest about taxes yell even louder and call a lawyer if they hit a pothole and break an axle, not to mention what they do if the bridge falls out from under them.
Then there's things like the war in Iraq that is costing two billion dollars a week. That's tax money. And what about the huge national debt? Forget that, we'll just stick it on the kids. How about care for veterans? Remember all that talk about supporting the troops, or does that just apply while they're still in uniform?
Don't forget Aunt Tillie and Grandpa Joe. Should they just become rugged individualists and make it on their own even when they're too old or too sick to haul themselves out there and get a job? A hundred years ago people had large families and they pretty much stayed in one place. When Aunt Tillie and Grandpa Joe grew old and infirm, the family was there to take care of them. Today most families are smaller and their members are spread out all over the map. It would be somewhat disturbing, wouldn't it?, to have to pass Tillie and Joe starving in the gutter while on your way to work.
So sure, cutting waste is a great idea and some of it does exist. A little of it probably is inevitable. Still, when I hear talk about cutting taxes left and right I'm reminded of what writer William Campbell Gault said about rewriting: "You have to do it, but be careful because you may be cutting out the good stuff."

http://www.dickstodghill.com/