Point of View: So Say It

I just know that this so-called tax reform plan, if what’s been intimated comes to be, will gore my ox, and probably will gore the oxen of numerous other members of the middle class here, this being a high-tax state where middle classers itemize. 

Doubling the marital deduction won’t do it. Retaining the mortgage interest deduction while erasing real property tax and state income tax deductions won’t do it. In other words, when all is said and done, we, the middle people, at least in these parts, will be saddled with a tax increase, not a tax cut, as is continually being promised.

But, waiting for the other shoe to drop, I’m thinking that my tax hike would be rendered more palatable if I knew it were destined for a fund dedicated to rebuilding this country, its rail system, bridges, levees, and ranger stations, for example, rather than the further buildup of our nuclear stockpiles. (Surely, by now, someone has figured out how many bombs are needed to assure utter destruction — many fewer, I would imagine, than we now have.)

So, since most everyone — me included — is lamenting the corrosive all-for-one and all-for-one attitude in the air these days, why not embark on a national rebuilding project that might bring us together in some shared purpose other than the extinction of malcontents everywhere, a national project that just might make us feel great again?

It’s quite obvious that this kind of thing is what the country needs. So say it. Tax hikes for everyone and this is where the money is going to go. Sleeves will be rolled up. Many jobs will be created. Gored oxen will be stitched up. Money will be earmarked for life rather than for death.

Again we’d be the city on a hill, an inspiration again, showing the world what good things can be done by people of good will working together.

It might be money well spent.