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It’s not that taxes
are bad, it’s that they
are spent badly

AT any given moment, someone somewhere in America is complaining about taxes.

Grievances come from all quarters -- the left, center, right, the red, blue, purple, the rich and working poor, business people and consumers. Newspapers publish them in letters to the editor. Radio talk show babble-heads solicit them. Members of Congress delete them from e-mail files. State politicians worry about what they'll mean in the next election cycle.

No one likes to pay taxes, but everyone wants the services and benefits that taxes render. Or not.

Some don't want "their" tax dollars spent on things that offend them morally or principally. A Houston man, for example, doesn't want federal funds used for stem-cell research. He wrote to a news magazine about his son, one of scores of children whose natural parents gave up their embryos to other couples. He objects to using his tax money for acquiring information that holds promise to cure terrible diseases, not acknowledging that taxes paid for a share of fertility and reproduction research that today allows him to have a child.

But as an American, he has the right to draw a line, and so do I.

First, I'd like the U.S. government to stop feeding Halliburton, the company that made Vice President Dick Cheney a richer man. The largest contractor of the Iraq war has already overcharged our accounts by at least $218 million, a Pentagon audit reports.

If the government were like any other consumer who gets bilked, it would take its business elsewhere, but the Bush people inexplicably and relentlessly keep shoveling cash at Halliburton. The latest exhibition of government generosity is a $30 million contract that could eventually be worth $500 million to build a new prison at the disputed Guantanamo Bay facility. Halliburton and its subsidiaries have gobbled $7.4 billion in noncompetitive contracts, making it the No. 7 defense contractor last year, up from No. 37.

I'd also like the president to leave off paying the salaries of ex-oil industry lobbyists who distort scientific reports on global warming, fix facts to square with Bush's anti-environment policies, then quit government work for jobs with ExxonMobil.

I object to my taxes being funneled to administration-chosen teams who, in a matter of a few weeks, rewrite an 18-month analysis outlining detrimental effects of cattle grazing on wildlife, endangered species and water resources. Again, when the facts do not fit policy, the facts are "fixed," just in time for Bush's people to announce new rules to relax protection of 160 million acres of public lands.

I disapprove of even 2 cents going to Republican lobbyists to hunt down liberals and anti-administration views in public broadcast programs in spite of their inaccurate assessments, such as identifying Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel as a lefty. One of these guys recently got pink-slipped by another GOP senator for writing the infamous memo about how to politically exploit the Terri Schiavo case.

As for former R.J. Reynolds lawyers who morph into Justice Department officials through political appointments and reduce penalties sought against tobacco companies from $130 billion to a mere $10 billion, I say get them off the payroll. Let them go back to toting up billable hours in the private sector where pressuring witnesses to reverse their testimony may be easier to hide.

Closer to home, I'm not thrilled that millions of tax dollars flow to tourism promotion that tout Hawaii's beauty as a lure when very little goes to protecting the islands' natural areas. The Legislature earlier this year cleared bills that would dedicate a percentage of revenue from the property conveyance tax so that there will be money to buy lands for preservation, funds to build badly needed rental housing and to sustain state ecosystems.

Because these measures will raise a tax, which runs counter to Gov. Lingle's political philosophy, speculation is that she may veto them. That would be regretful since clearly the money will used for good purpose.

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