Supreme Court Justice, and one of the most quotable noir-ish soldiers from Ken Burns’ Civil War, Oliver Wendell Holmes:
“Taxes are the price we pay for civilized society.”
I’m working on an article to be published on how public investment (thinking through the lens of the triple bottom line) should be thought of in terms of what return can be generated. I’m more than happy to pay taxes that generate good schools, quality healthcare, builds bridges, efficient and intelligent transportation, particularly mass transit with a keen eye for its integration with and end result of the adjacent urban development, i.e. high quality urban places.
I thought to myself today during a meeting how we as the citizenry and stewards of our cities and country, are like amnesiacs learning how to build cities AND a civilized society again. The complete failure we are seeing of neo-liberal so-called free market global economics certainly appears to be the crash that Fourth Turning predicts. Thanks Baby Boomers, you fulfilled your destiny.
Piggy Backing on the previous article regarding the cost of selfishness, and in turn, the resultant anarchy, his closing statement:
“In my business, I hate regulations, unions, and high taxes.
In my country, I appreciate regulations, unions, and what high taxes, if intelligently spent, do for me. Then I live in a country in which business in general does better, my investments in the stock market do better, my retirement is protected, my children’s health care is affordable, and I have more hope for their future.”
