I am really fucking bitter about all the fucking taxes I pay.

[Warren Stupidity]

And what they are going toward. I am a bitter small town suburban white male, a middle class overworked 50 something, with full tuition kids in college getting squished at all ends financially, paying through the nose for everything and it is TAX FUCKING TIME again and I am massively bitter. I am watching bitterly as my 401Ks and IRAs melt away again. I read with a cold bitter eye the email from the CEO instructing us that once again bonuses and merit increases are on hold. I was standing in the cold rain pumping gas into my ancient subaru that I bitterly hope will manage to last another half a decade, pumping gas soaked in the bitter blood of our soldiers, a million dead iraqis and 3 trillion dollars in present and future costs, at $3.xx a gallon and going up every week. That is where my tax money is going, that gas pump is what we got for our money instead of what we might have gotten had we taken that other path back in the '70s when America was Greening. Instead of universal health care, universal higher education, instead of an alternative sustainable energy infrastructure, instead of a caring and just and democratically regulated society, we got this neoliberal neocon reagan counter-revolution failed experiment in going back to the gilded age of the 1890s with a heaping serving of imperialist idiocy.

It is bitter out here in america. Really fucking bitter.

(Bitterly edited to correct bitterly stupid typos.)

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Amen to that.

Barack has hit a note that describes my feelings.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Yeah. Imagine if, instead of laughing at Carter for saying we need new energy sources,

we had listened and not voted for Reagan.

Such a simple choice in 1980, but we chose wrong, and send this country on the path of doom.

[MH1]

3. I'm only bitter about what they are going toward.

I've been blessed with good fortune, and I don't mind paying my share.

What I ** DO ** mind is that instead of riding in a clean, relatively crime-free subway to work, I have to either a) help (more) in the destruction of the planet by driving my own car to work; or b) feel like I'm taking my life in my hands for the privilege of taking mass transit that I hope to GOD is the filthiest system in the U.S. - cuz I'd sure hate to see anything worse. (Seoul Korea wasn't as bad as Philly's Broad Street Line.)

What I ** DO ** mind is having two nephews serving in the military who are both now stationed in Iraq, and a huge chunk of my tax dollars going to make me and them and all of us LESS safe, while this country can't even send FOOD to a small country just off our shores where people are rioting because they can't afford to eat because of a supply-demand curve (and other policies) that have been greatly influenced by stupid or callous policies of this country.

I could go on but I think y'all get the point.

[Warren Stupidity]

4. Indeed.

If it wasn't clear, that too is what makes me bitter about the taxes: they go towards shit.

[tblue37]

7. Not only can the Haitians not afford to eat, but they have to

try to calm their hunger pains by eating "dirt cookies." There was a time when we would send food to a country if we heard the people, especially the children, had to eat dirt because they were in such pain from hunger! But of course we are the same country that didn't even bother to send water, much less food, to people who were suffering and dying as the administration allowed one of our own major cities to be wiped out.

Hmmm. You don't suppose the fact that Haitians are Black and many of those displaced by Katrina are Black might have something to do with the country's willingness to "let them eat cake"--or dirt cookies?

[Unbowed]

5. Agreed. Too many bitter pills to swallow in recent years.

Why would we want to elect another one? Or should I say two (Clinton & Clinton)?

[Bensthename]

6. Obama said "bitter" oh shit he just lost the election..

Who would have ever known that was a curse word.. And the truth is bad and sugar coating a lie is good. Unbelievable.

[seaglass]

8. Sadly the majority in my town feel the same way you do and

the result is:

1 closed elementary school
1 closed Fire Station
30 laid off teachers
4 laid off firefighters
2 laid off police officers
school bus fees of $200/child
school sports fees of $400/sport

:-(

[Hepburn]

11. Wow....

...it's been a long time since I had a child in public school. How awful...charging for buses and for sports. I had no clue shit like that was going on. And yet, people are paying property taxes and they still pay on top of that for things that I never imagined would be anything but free for all students.

Sad...really fucking sad...and here we are spending how much a month for that bullshit in Iraq?

Wow.....!!

[Liberal Gramma]

14. This is one of the ironies of our tax system

The largest share of our taxes are federal, and they support the war we all hate, the military-industrial complex, congressional pork projects, and oh, yes, some "entitlement" programs like Social Security and Medicare. The smallest part of our taxes support the services we all depend on: parks, schools, fire departments, police departments, transportation. Yet these are the only taxes we have any control over. If I were queen of the country, I'd have it the other way around: the local services would be supported by the largest portions of tax dollars, and the smallest portion of taxes would go to Washington.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. Actually about property taxes I am far less bitter.

They get put to good use, and in my state they are the sole source funding for our town services. I am bitter about federal taxes and the use they are put to.

[Onlooker]

9. Bitterness is such an unflattering word

I am angry about many things, but I don't have bitterness. I don't have cynicism or rancor. If I did, I would not support an idealist like Obama. I would suggest that DUers replace the ugly and unflattering word "bitter" with "anger."

[Bensthename]

10. Anger is a better word then bitter? OMG, talk about nit picking.

[Warren Stupidity]

16. Bitter works.

[enid602]

12. taxes

I'd pay twice as much in taxes if the Government would just spend it on human betterment rather than war and corruption.

[midnight]

13. So grateful to you for writing a bitterly honest assessment of

how bitter it is to have our taxes go to those who squander on death and destruction. Tis a bitter disappointment.