Taxes, Taxes and Services…

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

And then we get the news that turns our head. My advice, my cousins in the US?

Embrace it.

It is important that all nations are not judged by the color of their polices but by the content of them. It is vital that you are not seen as successful by how rich your richest are but by how much your poor are cared for. Take the view of the weakest and not the strongest when it comes to judging success and when you move forward, far fewer shall be left behind.

Trust me.

Once in a generation is an investment worth making. Tax is virtue as you place it in the hands of those who can do good with it.

I pay taxes twice over. I pay it in my wages, and I pay it in my self-employment. I have no issue with it.

At seven days old my youngest daughter had open heart surgery. The cost to my insurance? Zero. I have any health insurance. The cost to me directly? Zero. I have paid my taxes to allow our health care system to offer treatment for free at the point of delivery. Nobody in the UK needs to pay for healthcare. We get it almost all for nothing.

My son was given a cochlear implant when he was under three years old to allow him to hear. The cost to my insurance? Zero. I have any health insurance. The cost to me directly? Zero. I have paid my taxes to allow our health care system to offer treatment for free at the point of delivery. Nobody in the UK needs to pay for healthcare. We get it almost all for nothing.
Some of us do pay dental charges but the Scottish Government are looking to get rid of these costs.

Of course, there is no sense that there is such a change in US social care. Joe Biden has not proposed similar policies for the US. What has been proposed is beautifully radical, modern, bold and to be welcomed. We are hearing it is the largest overhaul of the systems since the 1960’s.

All power to his elbows. Please support him in making the change.

We have already seen how brilliant the reversal of policies to the World Health Organization and the Paris Accord have gone down globally. This may not have the same traction and people will see it differently, but it is a tremendous step along the way to ensuring that the most vulnerable in US society have the security and the support they need to contribute back.
Not all of them will.

Not all of them do.

Not all of them can.

But all of them have the right to try.

For some, their issues and difficulties swamp them and in amongst those who are taking the benefits are those who shall cheat and scheme to fiddle and scam what is on offer.
That’s human nature.

Better the guy who is taking thousands out the welfare budget in a scam than the conglomerate hiding tax dollars away in an offshore account so that you can’t get it to feed the hungry.

Sometimes you gotta work out what side you are on.

The Republicans have already worked it out.

America, you have a decision to make too.

From all the way over here, the Biden proposals, in their entirety feel like they have merit, and we wonder why it is that it has taken you so long. But then again, we have our own Trump like principal who is trying his best to dismantle the idea of how we fund things by aping the American model – the old model, if Biden gets his way. We are in a reverse battle to yours.

But the vision that sees a man as President, flanked for the very first time in history by two powerful women when he makes his speech, neither of them his partner, is at last “normal” for the US. I hope that investing in the services for the needy and the jobs for the future of our planet these policies become similarly normal too.

Welcome to the fight. Buckle in, it’s a tough ride…

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(kailyard n. a genre of sentimental Scottish literature turned into effective invective comment from one Donald worth reading…)

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