Originally published at American Family. Please leave any comments there.

My dad is an extremely fiscally-conservative republican.  I am, uh, not.  Usually, we agree to disagree and avoid discussing politics because it only makes both of us annoyed.

I don’t know if he saw something on the news that made him agitated or what, but this morning my dad went off on a bit of a rant about the misuse of his tax dollars and the fact that he thinks he pays way too much money in taxes.

I also think that my tax dollars are wasted on some things, but my dad and I have very different ideas about what things are wasteful.  (Me: war, corporate welfare.  Dad: public transportation, anything that benefits anyone but him.)

The thing is, I just don’t mind paying my taxes.   And, even worse in my dad’s eyes, I don’t feel like the government is taking to much of “my” money.  If it were up to me to allocate my taxes myself, I would have different priorities than the current administration, but there isn’t much I can do about that other than vote for politicians that share my values.

At the end of the day, I feel like taxes are kind of like the rent I pay to live in the US and to enjoy the privileges of being an American citizen.  Despite some things I don’t like about this country, most of the time I like living here.  Paying taxes doesn’t bother me at all. 

As a matter of fact, I would happily pay more taxes if it meant that everyone could have access to good healthcare, good nutrition, good education and good childcare.

When I said the above in response to my dad’s anti-tax tirade, he looked like his head (or at least that throbbing vein on his neck) was going to explode.  He spent a good 10 minutes trying to convince me that I *do* hate paying taxes and that I pay too much.  He could not wrap his head around the idea of it not bothering me.

My dad and I are just very different people.