David Behling, Notes from Home

Be angry, be very angry. Or else be afraid, be very afraid.

Those are the messages in the commercials I see on TV, find in the mail and read in letters in newspapers. Our government is the problem — is our enemy — and must be opposed. It’s our patriotic duty. So off we go to the voting booth to throw out the scoundrels so that others can take over, the ones we don’t need to be angry at or afraid of.

Only we just did that two years ago, when we threw out other scoundrels during the last election cycle. There was a lot of anger and fear in the air back then, too, but was there anything to vote “for” in that election, other than “change” from what had been? What about this election?

That’s one problem with anger and fear; there’s only something to vote against.

But I’ve written about anger in politics before, as have others, and there’s no point in dwelling on it again. The last voices angry people listen to are the ones relying on reason and evidence. It’s all about emotion and “getting” the bad guys.

There’s a different message in current political speech that concerns me more, right now. It’s a subtle message about greed, about how being selfish is OK.

This is the message: Those people in Washington (or St. Paul or Des Moines or any capitol) want to take away your hard-earned money. That’s your money, those voices cajole. You should decide how to spend your money.

Sounds reasonable on the surface, right? Maybe. It certainly appeals to the selfishness in me. It’s MY money. I’m going to spend it on what I want to spend it on. The community’s needs can wait.

The thing is, the message about “keeping our money” appears to include this unfortunate consequence: We’re not giving as much to charities as we used to (according to the different organizations that keep track of this). So in order to avoid raising taxes, we’re cutting programs that serve people in need, and then we’re giving less to the organizations that have to patch the holes in society’s safety net we created. The poor and needy, including families with children, including people who are working, but need expensive medical care, they suffer.

As I am assailed by the message that selfishness is OK, when it comes to paying taxes, I wonder how many of us have thought about the theology of those serpent-like words about money. Whose money is it really? Is it MY money? Is there even a remote possibility that it’s somebody else’s money? Somebody very, very large but who’s hard to see when we’re not looking? The last time I read the Bible, that somebody had lots of advice about where our hearts should be focused and what our money should be used for.

I don’t have a magic number when it comes to knowing when taxes have become a real burden, but some of us seem to believe that any amount paid in taxes is too much. However, we’re supposed to pay the bills for government — roads and bridges, schools, colleges, snow removal, libraries, parks, fire and police protection (it’s a pretty long list, isn’t it?) — it can’t come from more taxes. Even if those things cost more.

Like I said above, not many people are in the mood for reasons and evidence right now, but I’m going to try anyway. How many know how much of a bite taxes in our state really take out of people’s incomes?

Because when you look at numbers generated by the Minnesota Department of Revenue, next year the people at the bottom will pay the most — 22 percent of their income — to the state (all taxes, factored together). Meanwhile, the people at the top, people making $200,000 or more annually, will have a total tax rate in 2011 of less than 10 percent.

Who really is sacrificing the most at this point? Even in the face of a fiscal crisis, why aren’t citizens at the top expected to sacrifice a single additional dollar, let alone a percentage point?

When I vote next week, I’ll be thinking about fairness and the needs of the community more than my own desire to spend money on something.

I’ll also be looking for something to vote for, instead of something to vote against.

Albert Lea resident David Rask Behling teaches at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa, and lives with his wife and children in Albert Lea. His column appears every other Tuesday.