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The Necessity Of American
Perseverance
"We must never despair; our
situation has been compromising before, and it has changed for the
better; so I trust it will again.
If difficulties arise, we must
put forth new exertion and proportion our efforts to the exigencies
of the times." -- George
Washington
While
on
the phone with the IRS trying to learn the tax rules for small
businesses, I realized just how much of a percentage of
every dollar of my earnings would go to taxes. I was
stunned.
Self-employed people pay double Social Security and
double Medicare taxes, which is on top of federal income taxes. Then
there are state income taxes that many have. And when
a small business is a second income, the entire small
business income will be taxed at a higher income tax rate because it
is at the top of the
yearly earnings.
I
remember pointing out to the IRS person on the
phone how little would be left after taxes and business costs.
And I will never forget his response. He said to me, "It's
better than nothing."
The
arrogance of that IRS employee made me so upset. As long as he
receives his high government pay and great benefits on the dime of
millions of Americans who work so hard, that’s all that
mattered to him. He did not care about the number of people who work
just as hard as he works and/or harder, who earn far less while
paying him. I felt the wind-of-hope draining from my
body.
It is true that when hope is taken away, that
the average person is not going to work as hard at
getting financially ahead. That harms people
personally and it harms the economy on a whole. And though
I don't agree with the people who go overboard trying to get ahead,
to the point of ignoring all else in life, there is good
in hard work and good in working towards a better
financial situation.
As a people, we
can help America's bad financial situation, while we help our
own.
Just as our household finances are not going
to get better if we don't suck it up and do what we can do to
make things better, even if that means working hard for far
less than we should get, our country's financial situation is not
going to get better either. This might sound crazy, but I have
actually come to realize that though that IRS man was arrogant to
say what he said, he was actually right. As Americans, we have to do
what we can do, even if that means doing it for less.
We
need to adopt a "Work is Great, Even for Less" attitude. And in our
free time, we need to educate ourselves and then others on our
country, on our government, and on politics. And we need to get
involved and do our best to change things for the better so that
some day things will be better in this country. Losing hope and
giving up will never get us there. We have to
persevere.
Debra J.M. Smith 09-20-12
www.InformingChristians.com |
