Thursday, October 17, 2013

Salaries paid by my taxes

Romans 13:6
1 Corinthians 9:7-10
Taxes
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I pay sales tax, gas tax, income tax, property tax, Social Security tax, phone tax, sewage tax, and probably several others hidden within various bills or openly stated but not coming to mind right now. Although I am officially in the lowest tax bracket, it seems like altogether my husband and I spend about half of our income on the government and live on the remainder. While I would certainly argue with most of the ways my government uses that money and the amount it thinks it needs to take from our wallet, it is quite appropriate to pay taxes so those who work hard at protecting our safety receive just compensation for their efforts. Those taxes go toward the salaries of emergency workers, soldiers, police officers, road construction crews, ambassadors, judges, social workers, and yes, even politicians. I may wish that certain individuals were fired, or compensated a little less generously, but I don't begrudge the majority the salary they receive for all that it comes out of my pocket. I receive a lot of benefit from them, so why shouldn't I help pay them? And I am truly blessed in the opportunity to help choose some of the individuals whose jobs my taxes help to finance, even if I don't get to choose them all, and even if my choices are often overruled by the majority. Most people in history didn't get that opportunity at all: whoever was in authority over them was paid by their taxes regardless of whether they liked the person or not.

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