Exploration Through Example

Example-driven development, Agile testing, context-driven testing, Agile programming, Ruby, and other things of interest to Brian Marick

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Tue, 25 Apr 2006

Raise my taxes, please

I don't know what the US should do in Iraq. I believe we're morally obligated to make it come out the best we can. I don't know if we're now doing that, if we could do better by changing course, or if our presence irretrievably does more harm than good. Since the Administration is unwilling to be truthful with the citizenry, since the press is unable to travel in Iraq and is in any case broken as an institution, and since I'm certainly not competent to collect and judge the data myself, I expect I won't know for twenty years, if ever.

However, it is wrong for me to sit here, fat and happy, paying no price while Iraqis, the US military, the UK military, and their families suffer. The least I can do is not add to the trouble of others by expecting my children to pay for all this.

Using figures from the US Internal Revenue service and the Congressional Research Service, I figure my family's share of the Iraq+Afghanistan wars to date is around US$2749, and our share of ongoing costs is US$630 per year. Since we are a two-income family, make rather more than the average, and I believe in a progressive income tax, my rough guess is that we should pay a lump sum somewhere between US$5000 and US$7500, and then between US$1000 and US$1500 yearly. I urge the Congress to raise my taxes accordingly.

I'm serious. Who's with me?

## Posted at 07:25 in category /misc [permalink] [top]