Who is the Taxpayer? She will vote NO on NOvember 5th on the Meals Tax question

With a strong nod to William Graham Sumner... From time to time, we get questions regarding "Who is the Taxpayer?"...  With the important meals tax question on the ballot on NOvember 5th.  The Taxpayer wants to clarify who she is and also encourage her fellow Chesterfield voters a strong NO vote on the meals tax.  Now who is the Taxpayer? ;)

She is the simple, honest laborer, ready to earn her living by productive work. We pass her by because she is independent, self-supporting, and asks no favors. She does not appeal to the emotions or excite the sentiments. She only wants to make a contract and fulfill it, with respect on both sides and favor on neither side.

She must get her living out of the capital of Chesterfield County. The larger the capital is, the better living she can get. Every particle of capital which is wasted on the vicious, the idle, and the shiftless is so much taken from the capital available to reward the independent and productive laborer.

But we stand with our backs to the independent and productive laborer all the time. We do not remember the Taxpayer because she makes no clamor.  We appeal to one's commonsense.  Should the Taxpayer be remembered? Should we protect her against the burdens of the good-for-nothing?

In these last years we have read hundreds of articles and heard scores of sermons and speeches which were really glorifications of the good-for-nothing, as if these were the charge of society, recommended by right reason to its care and protection, We are addressed all the time as if those who are respectable were to blame because some are not so, and as if there were an obligation on the part of those who have done their duty towards those who have not done their duty.

Every woman is bound to take care of herself and her family and to do her share in the work of society. It is totally false that one who has done so is bound to bear the care and charge of those who are wretched because they have not done so. The silly popular notion is that the beggars live at the expense of the rich, but the truth is that those who eat and produce not, live at the expense of those who labor and produce. The next time that you are tempted to subscribe a dollar to a charity, we do not tell you not to do it, because after you have fairly considered the matter, you may think it right to do it, but we do ask you to stop and remember the Taxpayer and understand that if you put your dollar in the savings bank it will go to swell the capital of the county which is available for division amongst those who, while they earn it, will reproduce it with increase.


Such is The Taxpayer. She works, she votes, generally she prays-- but she always pays--yes, above all, she pays.  She does not want the corner office; her name never gets into the newspaper except when she gets married or dies. she keeps working as a cog in the machine. She is flattered before each November election. She is strongly patriotic. She is wanted, whenever, in her little circle of friends, there is work to be done or advice to be given. She may grumble a little bit to her husband and family, but she does not frequent the food pantry or talk politics.

Consequently, she is forgotten. She is a commonplace woman. She gives no one any trouble. She excites no admiration or second glance. She is not in any way a hero (like a popular statesman); or a problem (like social misfits); nor notorious (like criminals); nor an object of sympathy (like the poor and weak); nor a burden (like welfare recipients or crony capitalists); nor an object out of which social capital may be made (like the beneficiaries of church charities); nor an object for charitable aid and protection (like animals treated with cruelty); nor the object of a job (like the ignorant and illiterate); nor one over whom economists and statesmen can parade their fine wares (like inefficient workmen and shiftless artisans).

Therefore, she is forgotten. All the burdens fall on her.  It is plain enough that the Taxpayers are the very life and substance of society. They are the ones who ought to be first and always remembered. They are always forgotten by the bleeding hearts, philanthropists, reformers, government enthusiasts, and every description of sociologists, political economists, or political scientists.  If a student of any of these sciences ever comes to understand the position of the Taxpayer and to appreciate her true value, you will find such student an uncompromising advocate of the strictest scientific thinking on all social topics, and a cold and hard-hearted skeptic towards all artificial schemes of social experiments.  If it is desired to bring about social improvements bring us a scheme for relieving the Taxpayer of some of her burdens. She is our productive force which we are wasting. Let us stop wasting her force. Then we shall have a clean and simple gain for the whole society.

 

The Taxpayer is weighted down with the cost and burden of the schemes for making everybody happy, with the cost of public beneficence, with the support of all the loafers, with the loss of all the economic quackery, with the cost of all the jobs.  Let us remember her a little while. Let us take some of the burdens off her. Let us turn our pity on her instead of on the goodfornothing. It will be only justice to her, and society will greatly gain by it. Why should we not also have the satisfaction of thinking and caring for a little about the clean, honest, industrious, independent, self-supporting men and women who have not inherited much to make life luxurious for them, but who are doing what they can to get on in the world without begging from anybody, especially since all they want is to be let alone, with good friendship and honest respect, Certainly the philanthropists and bleeding hearts have kept our attention for a longtime on the nasty, shiftless, criminal, whining, crawling, and good for nothing people, as if they alone deserved our attention.

The Taxpayer is never a pauper. She almost always has a little capital because it belongs to the character of the woman to save something. She never has more than a little. She is, therefore, poor in the popular sense, although in the correct sense she is not so. We have said already that if you learn to look for the Taxpayer and to care for her, you will be very skeptical toward all philanthropic and humanitarian schemes.  It is clear now that the interest of the Taxpayer and the interest of "the poor," "the weak," and the other petted classes are in antagonism, In fact, the warning to you to look for the Taxpayer comes the minute that the orator or writer begins to talk about the poor man. That minute the Taxpayer is in danger of a new assault, and if you intend to meddle in the matter at all, then is the minute for you to look about for her and to give her your aid. Hence, if you care for the Taxpayer, you will be sure to be charged with not caring for the poor. Whatever you do for any of the petted classes wastes capital. If you do anything for the Taxpayer, you must secure her earnings and savings, that is, you legislate for the security of capital and for its free employment; you must oppose fiat paper money, wildcat banking laws and you must maintain the inviolability of contracts. Hence you must be prepared to be told that you favor the capitalist class, the enemy of the poor man.

What the Taxpayer really wants is true liberty. Most of her wrongs and woes come from the fact that there are yet mixed together in our institutions the old medieval theories of protection and personal dependence and the modern theories of independence and individual liberty. The consequence is that the people who are clever enough to get into positions of control, measure their own rights by the paternal theory and their own duties by the theory of independent liberty. It follows that the Taxpayer, who is hard at work at home, has to pay both ways. Her rights are measured by the theory of liberty, that is, she has only such as she can conquer. Her duties are measured by the paternal theory, that is, she must discharge all which are laid upon her, as is always the fortune of parents.

People talk about the paternal theory of government as if it were a very simple thing. Analyze it, however, and you see that in every paternal relation there must be two parties, a parent and a child, and when you speak metaphorically, it makes all the difference in the world who is parent and who is child. Now, since we, the people, are the state, whenever there is any work to be done or expense to be paid, and since the petted classes and the criminals and the crony capitalists cost and do not pay, it is they who are in the position of the child, and it is the Taxpayer who is the parent. What the Taxpayer needs, therefore, is that we come to a clearer understanding of liberty and to a more complete realization of it. Every step which we win in liberty will set the Taxpayer free from some of her burdens and allow her to use her powers for herself and for the commonwealth.