Wealth, Redistributed

For fifteen years, from 1982 until 1997, I was a single mother on active duty. (I’m still single and still a mother, but I no longer have financial responsibility for the tykes, the youngest of whom is 29.) Those were really tough years financially. I didn’t make a lot of money, and if I hadn’t had a house with a low mortgage payment and people who looked out for me, I honestly don’t know how I would have made it through that period of my life. Sometimes friends would donate their old furniture to me. One sold me a car; another, later, helped me buy a different used car. A few times, friends came over and did minor home repairs. One once found me a deal on a new central air compressor.

I wasn’t lazy. I wasn’t on welfare. I had three kids, a full time job, and all of those 15 years I was working on several college degrees, ending with a master’s the year after my youngest child turned 18. But I had very little money.

In short, times were tough, financially and otherwise.

One “person” who looked out for me was my Uncle Sam. Because we have a graduated income tax system under which people pay according to their means, I received tax breaks for my “head of household” status and for my three minor dependents. I don’t have easy access to my old tax records, but I probably paid well less than $1500 in federal income taxes in 1997, the last year I qualified as head of household and had a dependent other than myself. For argument’s sake, let’s say it was $1500.

In 1998, I became, for tax purposes, a “single” person. I no longer maintained a household for dependent children and had only myself as an exemption. My taxes might have skyrocketed, but for the next three years, ironically, I made even less money than before, in part because my previous job had ended with my boss’ retirement and I was teaching part time. For a while there, I also had a very crummy low-wage mortgage company job (with one of those companies that recently was bought out just before it collapsed). My income was even lower, but due to my new status, my taxes increased somewhat.

Six years ago, I obtained a full-time teaching job, and my income increased considerably, although I am still hardly a top-wage earner. Last year I made about $46,000, including summer work. Next year it’ll be a lot less because I will have little or no summer employment.

In 2007, I paid $5300 in federal income taxes. This means that over a ten year period, I have had an increase in taxes of more than 300%.

I have never once complained about this, and I’m not writing this post to complain now.* Between 1982 and 1997, I was financially insecure, and sometimes financially paralyzed. Now times are better, and I am comfortable enough not to have to worry about how I am going to pay for the groceries or if I’ll be able to make it to the next paycheck. (Other things are more problematic, but I can cover all the basics.)

For this reason – because I am financially stable and can afford all the basics – I think it’s just that I have received that 300% increase. Sure, I’d like to pay fewer taxes, but I haven’t forgotten that when I needed the “wealth redistributed” to me, it was. When I couldn’t afford to pay $5300 in taxes, I wasn’t asked to. And now that I can afford to pay it, I am asked.

On a small scale, this is Barack Obama’s tax plan. Some people can better afford to share the cost of running our country. And those complaining should consider that Obama isn’t asking anyone, not even those making over $250,000 per year, for a 300% increase.

So to those complaining, get over it.




*I have sometimes complained about how the money was spent, but never that I was required to pay it.

Friday Cat Blogging: Teenage Molly Ninja Turtle

Nineteen ninety-three was a year of change in our cat population. First I found JJ along the side of the road and brought her home "temporarily." Then, Semmi, the most majestic-looking cat I ever hope to own, was murdered with a small-caliber gun, and in my grief, the next weekend I followed a "free kittens" sign to my most-beloved cat, Molly.

She had been with us only a few months and was still in her kittenhood, probably technically a cat-teen, when we discovered her amazing talent: like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Molly could defy gravity and fight foes in mid-air. Like a Honey Nut Cheerios mini-beach ball:



Back in the old days, toys sometimes actually came in cereal boxes and we didn't have to send away for them. The beach ball was one such toy. The kids were casually batting it around when Molly went into hyperdrive and leapt to the attack. Leapt, as in gravity-defying heights.

So the game was on. For some weeks, several times a day, the kids would post themselves at either end of the hall and bat the ball back and forth; Molly, between them, would leap and twist and contort in her efforts to attack the ball, and she would play this game until she was exhausted. We took a number of photos -- this is the best -- and some video (which is somewhere in this house...). After a few weeks, she lost interest in the beach ball, as teenagers do. They grow up, find new interests, and move on.

The old TV has been replaced twice over, the nasty carpet ripped out years ago, the son now property of the USMC, but Molly and I are still here keeping each other company, both a little too sluggish and creaky to chase after inflatable balls, but still here. And so are the memories.