“No Taxpayer Money for Democratic Party!”

Most of my adult life, I have had paychecks to open. On occasion when I was a waiter or bartender, I was even given cash tips. I was under the impression that—with the exception of a percentage of tips that I shared with the staff that helped me earn them, and the share that would go to taxes when I fully and accurately declared those tips as income—that the amount on the check and the tips in my pocket were now “my money”.

I worked the hours, I did the job. That money certainly does not belong my employer anymore. I have agreed that this was my money  when my employer was a for-profit business. It was true when my employer was a not-for-profit organization. It was true when I was self employed. Whoever used  to have that money has now transferred it to me: it is mine!

The principle of my wages being “my money”  applies even when the employer is an especially sensitive one. I am an ordained Christian minister who has received paychecks from several churches in a half dozen or so denominations. What was the church’s money  I had to spend as the church desired with their approval; if I misspent their money, I could be compelled to give it back.  Not so with my wages. On the 1^st and the 15^th, that part of their money  became my money, and my employer gave up all claim to it. If I spent it on illegal, unethical, or really nasty things (I didn’t, unless you count my taste in second hand furniture) they could fire me, but they could not have my money  back.

The dominant political narrative of our time says this: not only does my employer have no claim to my money, but neither does the government. Ever since the Regan Revolution thirty years ago, the dominant way to talk about the wages or salaries paid to the American Worker is this: “It’s your money, and the government should get as little of it as possible!”  

Fair enough. I can roll with that, even though I voted for Carter that election.

More recently, since the Health Care Reform Act passed a full and legally constituted US Congress, I have heard the steady drumbeat of objection to the provisions that require private citizens to purchase health insurance. The idea is that even the constitution says you can’t tell people what they must buy with their money!.

I get it. It makes sense. I don’t have any substantial argument with conservatives on this point.

But I do not understand why that same principle does not apply if the check happens to come from a state or local government?

Why is the money that has been paid as wages to someone who has done the job of teaching my child, caring for my elderly parents, certifying that I and other motorists know how to drive safely, repairing the potholes on my state’s highways, building bridges on the interstate, keeping airplanes from crashing into each other over my home…why aren’t the wages they have earned “their” money?  Once a wage has been paid to a public employee, it is no longer taxpayer money, any more than the money I earn from private business is still my employer's money. The child support I pay to my staunchly Republican former wife (while she raises our daughter to believe that Barak Obama was born to Communist Muslim jihadists on Pluto) is no longer my money. On that point, we all (and the courts) are agreed.

The falsehood behind the “taxpayer money” line is that even the people who say it know it isn’t true…at least not if the same logic is applied to their own paychecks!  And it is the height of hypocrisy for a public figure who trumpets the “my money”  philosophy about taxes to say it is “taxpayer’s money”  when talking about money earned by a public employee.

This principle applies not only to wages, but to spending. It is not my  money anymore when I spend it at Target or WalMart, even if I find the political actions of those stores repulsive. I gave them money (it is now their money); they gave me the merchandise (it is now my stuff). I cannot expect that they will give me back my money—yet let me keep the merchandise—simply because I don’t like the anti-equality or anti-union stance the corporation supports. Would any Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Tea Partier, or even any Socialist dare debate that point?

Only while it is still my money—i.e.: before I make the purchase—can I choose to consider the political affiliation of the merchant as relevant. That is my right, and that is my power.

Koch Industries, whose private ownership funds the politicians and talk show pundits who are trying to pound the “taxpayer money” line into our consciousness, makes a number of products that I can boycott if I find their use of their profits from my spending my money objectionable. These products include:

·         Lycra© and CoolMax© apparel fibers, and the fibers for Stainmaster© and Antron© carpets (source: http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/fibers.aspx ),

·         Quilted Northern^®, Angel Soft^®,Brawny^®, Sparkle^® , Soft 'n Gentle^®, Mardi Gras^®, Vanity Fair^®, and Dixie^®  paper products, as well as the building materials of Georgia Pacific ™ Forest Products, (source: http://www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/forestry.aspx ),

·         And a variety of other products and industries listed on the website www.kochind.com/IndustryAreas/default.asp  .

Anyone want to decide what to do with your money  before it becomes their  money?  That, and your vote,  are our voice.