Purpose of government | The Salt Lake Tribune

This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2012, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

In the debate over how to get our country's financial house in order, countless legislators insist that it's a spending, not a tax revenue, problem. All sides bottleneck any effort to cut spending on their preferred programs, so we are unable to deal with the problem on the spending side.

We have to resolve it on the tax side. Unfortunately, no one can mention this alternative. Conservatives simply refuse to admit it; progressives realize it's political suicide. What a shame.

There is nothing inherent about our tax scheme that makes it right or wrong at any moment in history. Like so many things, it needs to be adjusted to the situation at hand. Right now, the government needs more money to do all the things we assign it. What other choice is there but to increase revenue?

We've shored up banks and businesses to fend off depression, but we also extended the tax cuts. We've patched a broken health care payment system, and still we can't talk about adjusting our tax scheme for more revenue? That's just crazy!

Kendall Robins

Sandy