{"id":1212,"date":"2012-04-15T19:00:24","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T23:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/smalltownamerica\/?p=1212"},"modified":"2012-04-14T13:25:26","modified_gmt":"2012-04-14T17:25:26","slug":"tax-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/tax-day.html","title":{"rendered":"Tax Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the most wonderful time of the year; tax time.\u00a0 This is when &#8216;we the people&#8217; get to give a portion of our hard earned money to the government.\u00a0 Then they will spend it on all sorts of stuff.\u00a0 Not all this stuff is a wise use of Our money.\u00a0 I know we need money to run the government and all it&#8217;s programs.\u00a0 But , I also know that millions of dollars go to things that are totally ridiculous.<\/p>\n<p>Each person in the hierarchy of our government has their own pet projects.\u00a0 Each does all they can, including some things that are both illegal and unethical, to get their project financed.\u00a0 We have some programs that are greatly needed, but poorly supervised.\u00a0 The food stamp program meets a huge need for the people who have been hurt by the recession, the disabled and the elderly.\u00a0 Yet, they can buy soda pop and candy, but not toilet paper and soap.<\/p>\n<p>I cannot believe that we send millions of foreign aid to countries that are killing Americans and burning our flag.\u00a0 I realize that innocent people need the help. But what guarantees that the aid ever gets to them?\u00a0 We build schools for them to bomb, give food to strengthen them for the fight and sometimes even send them equipment that they use against us.\u00a0 I don&#8217;t want to spend my money that way.<\/p>\n<p>We have enough needs in our own country.\u00a0 Even with all the programs we have, 1 out of every 5 children go to bed hungry.\u00a0 Our schools are closing because of lack of funds.\u00a0 Our teachers and administrators are joining the unemployment line.\u00a0 We desperately need more low income housing, and we still need to fix many programs that aren&#8217;t working effectively.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, our politicians are taking their families to Europe or Africa at our expense.\u00a0 Our wealthy people are flying around in their personal jets, while we can&#8217;t afford to travel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I would love to go to Africa or Europe for vacation.\u00a0 Maybe if I could use my tax dollars for that, I could afford to go.<\/p>\n<p>I realize that we need to support our government financially, but I would feel better about paying my share if there were some accountability for all the spending. How can we continue to be a world leader, if we can&#8217;t take care of our own?\u00a0 How can we expect other nations to respect us when we let them continually lie to us and we don&#8217;t enforce the things we threaten to withhold?<\/p>\n<p>We need God&#8217;s help!!\u00a0 He is the only one who has all the answers,\u00a0 Many of us can see areas that need change, but we are in no position to make the change.\u00a0 Even Jesus had to pay taxes, but He learned to do it with grace.\u00a0 He told us to give the government what it is due&#8230;.but to also give God what is due Him.\u00a0 I wonder what a change that principle would make in our great nation?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s the most wonderful time of the year; tax time.\u00a0 This is when &#8216;we the people&#8217; get to give a portion of our hard earned money to the government.\u00a0 Then they will spend it on all sorts of stuff.\u00a0 Not all this stuff is a wise use of Our money.\u00a0 I know we need money&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":420,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,27],"tags":[26,37],"class_list":["post-1212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration","category-news-or-feature","tag-politics","tag-touching-others-s"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Tax Day - Small Town America<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/tax-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tax Day - Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It&#8217;s the most wonderful time of the year; tax time.\u00a0 This is when &#8216;we the people&#8217; get to give a portion of our hard earned money to the government.\u00a0 Then they will spend it on all sorts of stuff.\u00a0 Not all this stuff is a wise use of Our money.\u00a0 I know we need money&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/tax-day.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Small Town America\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-04-15T23:00:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-14T17:25:26+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"dhanny\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Tax Day - Small Town America","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/smalltownamerica\/2012\/04\/tax-day.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Tax Day - Small Town America","og_description":"It&#8217;s the most wonderful time of the year; 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