TAXES PAID, SERVICES DELIVERED, AMERICAN DREAM

You settle back after you close the books on your taxes paid and that new life waiting just around the corner.

Those taxes are the money paid to live the American Dream.

Who among us thinks of taxes paid every time we get jolted driving over another gaping pothole?

“Why do I bother when they can’t even fix a hole?”

As baby boomers, and this particular baby boomer blogger, have learned, it depends on the hole.

Money may not be the answer to every problem, but skip and cheat on taxes and you’ll have to answer.

There may not be enough money to feed the children, but there’s more than enough for the IRS.

Google AI:

 

Recent federal budget proposals and actions, particularly in 2025-2026, have targeted massive cuts to social safety nets and public services.

Key areas facing the largest cuts include over $1 trillion in proposed reductions to Medicaid and SNAP (food stamps) over ten years, along with significant reductions in foreign aid, housing assistance, federal education grants (Pell Grants), and scientific research funding.

 

Taxes paid, expectations set, and you run into the same pothole a year later, two years later.

You don’t break your car’s axle, but now your alignment is off and the steering pulls to the right until you get it fixed.

But you wait too long and now your tires are prematurely worn and need replaced.

Before you get them changed you take a long drive in the mountains and swerve around a dangerous pothole in the road.

 

 

These things happen to all of us? Some of us?

Maybe they never happen but someone heard it had happened somewhere on cable news but you don’t remember which is beside the point because just look.

BREAKING NEWS: They made you wreck your car!

 

The American Dream

We’re surrounded by toys, or we are the toys?

The richest man in the history of the world shows up on screen like a regular Joe and encourages us all to spill our guts, that each of us is a journalist, a writer, a blogger, a film maker, an artist, and we owe it to each other to journal, write, blog, film and art.

And I agree with lawn dust.

With few exceptions, there’s nothing I like more than seeing emerging talent at any age.

As a kid I saw other kids from the neighborhood grow up and dominate in sports where I’d idolized the older kids. (Hey Danny)

As a parent and coach I saw kids do the same from a new perspective, starting off awkward and goofy before joining the varsity.

All along I’ve kept an eye out for the value of spending time where it does the most good.

Living in a society takes constant practice, and that means spending time in the field, which feels like a social tax.

‘To be a part of society you must participate. Okay.’

 

As a former poor person, spending aside, they have to tax the poor less, and provide health and education. The deficit seems largely academic from my perspective.

The old local coffee shop finally got edged out, Starbucks remains, and they didn’t pay any federal tax… We’re down here on the bottom, paying the taxes, competing against companies who don’t.

Just a short while ago the government paid for all the education a person needed for a regular job, education requirements have changed, the education provided has not kept up. Deficit shmefisit

 

Getting What’s Paid For

We settle in, our taxes paid, receive services delivered, and dream that American dream of bigger and better, of up, up, and away.

Do some building and you learn to appreciate the codes, the reasons for the codes, and why they are enforced.

Electrical code: don’t overload a breaker box and start a fire that burns your house and the houses on either side down.

Plumbing code: clean water is expensive and the more you use the more you pay; the more outlets you have, the more points you accumulate, the higher the rate.

Construction code: the city doesn’t want a future dilapidated building to look forward to.

Codes are there for the common good, the safety of the citizenry, and the inspectors, along with the whole department, is tax funded, as they should be.

No one wants a crooked builder hiring their own inspection company to rubber stamp their shoddy work.

The services delivered for taxes paid should be in line with the established rules of order.

The taxes: city tax, county tax, property tax, business tax, state tax, federal tax, income tax, interest tax, debt tax, and so on.

Services needed, also known as the hole in the road: 

 

• Social Security (22%): The largest portion of the federal budget, these funds help provide retirement, disability, and survivor benefits for millions of Americans.

• Nondefense Discretionary Spending (14%): This category covers funding for government programs that are controlled by lawmakers through appropriation acts, including transportation, education, employment, and social services.

• National Defense (13%): This helps covers the costs associated with funding the U.S. military and defense-related activities, including service member salaries, equipment maintenance, and research and development for new technologies.

• Net Interest (13%): These funds go toward paying down the interest that has accumulated on the national debt held by the public.

• Medicare (13%): This program helps provide health insurance benefits for Americans aged 65 and older, as well as some younger individuals with disabilities.

• Medicaid (9%): A joint federal and state-funded program, these funds are granted to states to help provide health coverage to millions of low-income Americans, including children, pregnant women, and adults.

• Income Security (5%): These funds help support programs that assist individuals and families in need, including unemployment benefits, housing aid, food assistance and nutrition, and family support.

• Other (11%): This category includes funding for some veterans’ benefits, military retirement benefits, and other mandatory programs.

PS:

Let’s skip the self-aggrandizing and heroic need parts.

 

PSS:

Public service is directed toward the public need, not for the publicity needy of ‘what more can I do to see more of myself more often?’

That’s a lot of mores to move on from.