It was Benjamin Franklin that penned the now infamous quote "… nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." Had Franklin lived to see modern politics, he probably would have amended his original statement to add fighting over taxes to his miniscule list.
The tradition is centuries old in American history, from the Boston Tea Party to the Whiskey Rebellion to the modern day Tea Parties, these United States have been battling over taxes since the inception.
Pissed off old people may not be as radical as an actual insurrection, but that hyper-American theme of debating taxes seems like it will always stick around.
President Obama's state of the union address proved to keep the torch alight by arguing for fairer tax rules. His timing couldn't have been more perfect; or rather Mitt Romney's timing couldn't have been more perfect for Obama.
Hours before, Romney released his tax returns to the public. Buried within was a startling revelation: he paid a measly 14 percent tax rate on over $21 million in income. Romney became a walking argument for tax reform, and free ammunition for Obama.
Romney's name wasn't on the president's lips, but Warren Buffet was. The billionaire investor admitted last year that he paid less in taxes than his secretary did, and Obama's prospective tax rule is named after him.
The so-called Buffet Rule would close a loophole in the tax code that allows for millionaires to get away with paying very low rates. Capital gains, which are the difference between purchase prices and sell prices on things like stocks and real estate, are taxed at a much lower rate than regular income.
With Obama's new rule, millionaires would pay a tax rate of 30 percent on income whether or not it comes from stocks.
Opponents immediately began to toot the same old horn. Volleys of "job killer" and class warfare and claims that Obama was trying to divide the country were tossed around like candy.
A claim of class warfare is the final fortress of a bankrupt ideology. Republicans want to continue to hold fast to the idea that dumping money on people like Romney will magically grow jobs from nothingness, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Handing out unreasonable tax breaks will only continue to cripple a government that is actively working to repair the damage that massive banks and corporations have done to the economy.
The skyrocketing national debt needs to be taken care of, and making sure that millionaires and billionaires pay taxes at a rate as high as their secretaries is not only a way to help, it's a way to ensure taxes be fair to everyone of every class. Fairness is not class warfare.
Spending cuts, however, are also necessary. Both sides need to find a way to agree, rather than trying to flex their political muscles, on a reasonable budget proposal. Removing reckless government subsidies for the top two percent of earners is not unreasonable, and when mitigated by cuts the deficit will quickly become manageable.
Or, of course, we could drive the nation into the ground by being more concerned about being re-elected than what's good for the people.
Some men just want to watch the world burn, but it doesn't have to.
