Listening to KPBS on the way in to work this morning they were talking about a new “Paid Family and Medical Leave Act” that’s “working its way through” the California legislature at the moment. For only $40/year, shared between employees and employers, we may get some portion of our pay back if we take leave to assist a sick family member. (http://www.equalrights.org/legislat/sb1661.htm)
Just what we need, another tax. Call me a raving Libertarian (I generally consider myself a liberal Libertarian, or perhaps an anarchocapitalist) but I think that the government already takes way too much of my income away for questionable schemes. Why aren’t the politicians working on ways to reduce our tax load (easy answer, because money==power, and the more taxes, the larger the government, the more powerful the politicians).
I know taxes can’t be eliminated, and I have some pet projects of my own – I think the government should pay for NPR, sidewalks, efficient public transportation, and basic health care for the poor (because that costs us less than having them use the emergency facilities). And condoms for whoever wants them but can’t afford them (which costs a LOT less than the alternative).
People seem to think that businesses are there just to provide them with benefits and somewhere to sit around surfing the internet all day – when in reality, every employee has to EARN about 150% of their salary, just for a business to keep the doors open. I took a single day last month for jury duty (to sit there and not be selected) – I got a check from CA for $1.50, and it probably cost my employer $150 to have me gone (assuming there weren’t any major crises that day).
But there’s way way too much money being taken out of our pockets to pay for things like sports stadiums (tax everyone to support the super-wealthy?), wildly overpriced electrical power contracts, and bombing the poor in countries on the other side of the world – any yet when we’re forced to overpay income taxes, people think they’re being given a gift when they get a little bit of it refunded the next year.