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Not “Taxpayers,” but Citizens |
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Talking to a Spanish friend today about Obama’s tax cuts, she provided me with a Eureka moment. I was saying that Americans have been trained to demand tax cuts, and she replied, “Yeah, you guys are always talking about yourselves as ‘taxpayers’.”
I make no secret of my dislike for the antitax movement. But my friend’s comment (sometimes it takes an outsider to hold up the mirror on you) made me realize how deeply antitax rhetoric has penetrated my consciousness.
Other conversations with friends lately have turned on the reduction of the president’s job to the role of commander-in-chief. There’s a connection between the idea of citizen-as-taxpayer and president-as-general. In fact, I think language is showing us here what the difference is between the conservative and liberal view of government.
For conservatives, taxpayers guard their money, pooling resources only for defense, symbolized by the commander-in-chief.
For liberals, citizens participate in solving problems and building a stronger society. The president embodies the citizen who works for the common good.
If we allow others to define us as “taxpayers” rather than citizens, we’re buying into a conservative worldview. We’re implicitly exalting the idea of a society populated by insular misers.
Yes, we’re taxpayers. But we’re so much more than that too.
that’s a good point, and I do enjoy insights via scrutiny of language. But equating taxpayers as insular misers is itself a rhetorical twist of the screw that can just as easily go the other way, to libertarian individualists who demand a solid justification for the government stepping into their paychecks.
I find appeal in both. I am a taxpayer who wants a solid justification for the government taking more of dough. I’m also a citizen who wants to pitch in to societal problems. The terms do happen to have a relation to the conservative and liberal worldviews when used in certain contexts, but they are not inherently linked to these worldviews. To me,they are both simply statements of fact.
And isn’t it time we dropped the word “government” and changed it to “public service?” After all, they are supposed to be in our employe. The idea of “government” is that we pay them to tell us what to do. This isn’t my idea. How about everybody gets drafted into “public service” for a couple of years out of their lives. No lifer politicians sucking up our money and then having the nerve to condescend.