You want to talk politics? Me neither. Luckily this isn’t that. It’s just an illustration. Not to oversell it, but it’s brilliant. Like, super brilliant. Or maybe at least good.
The Argument
I don’t hear it very often, but I’ve heard it before. A couple who doesn’t have kids and never plans to have kids gets all upset that they have to pay taxes for the local school. After all, why should they have to put in money to educate our kids?
That makes a lot of sense. Or does it?
The Problem
The problem is the premise: their position is that they are paying money and getting nothing of value. They are paying money to educate our kids. It seems unfair they they would have to fork over coin for no benefit of their own.
But that’s exactly the problem. They don’t see the benefit that this gives them. They think they live in a vacuum.
The Benefit
The fact is they benefit greatly, the irony of which is lost on them as they sit on the couch and watch the local TV news while snacking on chips from the local market and waiting on a pizza from the local pizza place, all while using the electricity from the local power grid.
The fact that these kids learn how to contribute to society and become cameramen, store managers, delivery drivers, and electricians is lost on these people.
A Community
If these kids were never educated and able to handle these jobs, there would be no power, no running water, no central place to buy food, or most of the other niceties that come from living in a community.
We don’t live in a vacuum. We live in a community with other people. We rely on other people and they rely on us. The more the community thrives, the more we thrive.
When we worry about contributing to build a strong, healthier, more vibrant community because we want our fair share, we don’t get it. A community is a huge interconnected group. We need each other, and contributing to the heath of the community is contributing to our own health.
Should people who don’t want kids pay school taxes? Absolutely. Because when we contribute to the growth of our community, we all benefit.
