Benjamin Franklin once said, “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” At our next Indivisible Tacoma meeting, May 3rd at 6:30pm, Indivisible Tacoma will focus on the latter, not the former. Sometimes we’re not sure which is the more depressing topic, but like everything else it comes down to how we think about it. It makes sense to think about taxes as really being the dues we pay to enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Government is there to do the things we as individuals can’t do by ourselves, the schools, the roads, the infrastructure, protection from harms of all kinds and many other things we believe to be important. Our ‘dues’ pay the bills.
It stands to reason that the dues (taxes) we pay for all these things ought to be fairly distributed among all the citizens and organizations that reside in our state. Unfortunately, that is not the case here in Washington State. In fact, our state is among the most unfair in the land.
This is not a partisan issue. It is, above all else, a fairness issue, and fairness crosses all political divides. We need to understand the problem before we can fix it. That’s the goal of Wednesday’s meeting. Steve Kelly from the All In For Washington Campaign will lead a workshop touching on the facts, the problems, and you will get a chance to weigh in on some possible solutions to the tax code mess in our state.
Come join in. This is a good place for us to start.
