{"id":1490,"date":"2011-04-18T15:58:30","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T22:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2011\/04\/an_ode_to_tax_day\/"},"modified":"2011-04-18T15:58:30","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T22:58:30","slug":"an_ode_to_tax_day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/an_ode_to_tax_day.php","title":{"rendered":"An Ode to Tax Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a whole lot of screaming going on about taxes, as one would expect as the federal and state deadline looms at midnight tonight. But somewhere in the screaming, we seem to be missing the larger point of a common good. Whether you think government is too big or too small, or whether taxes are too high or too low (or both, depending on the bracket involved), there needs to be at least some acknowledgement of why we pay them at all. Then we can discuss how much should be paid.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Demos offers a healthy attempt to do just that <a href=\"http:\/\/demos.org\/updates\/Taxes_Matter_D6.html\">in their recent edition of <i>Tax Matters<\/i><\/a>. Says they:<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\" style=\"margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;\">\n<div>The stories we tell about tax day reflect a chronic disconnection from our role as citizens; they are devoid of civic meaning. Taxes pay for the things that underpin our public life and connect us to one another through our communities, our states and our country. When we lose sight of this, taxes are seen as merely depriving us of our individual property. If, on the other hand, we see ourselves as stewards of a common good, as citizen managers of public systems and structures that secure the city, state and country we live in, then taxes are our contribution to something important and bigger than we are.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Most of us have witnessed a truly connective charitable contribution &#8212; one where the <i>donor<\/i> of the major gift is emotional, joyful, and grateful &#8212; moreso sometimes than the recipient organization or group. In that moment, their gift is a deep expression of what they value, what they long for, what they hope the world to become.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Imagine if paying our taxes felt that way&#8230;then we&#8217;d be crying with joy on our way to the post office at 11:58 pm, rather than for other reasons.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Thanks to Russell Willis Taylor for the link!<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There&#8217;s a whole lot of screaming going on about taxes, as one would expect as the federal and state deadline looms at midnight tonight. But somewhere in the screaming, we seem to be missing the larger point of a common good. Whether you think government is too big or too small, or whether taxes are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1490","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}