While doing my taxes, I always complain how much money the government takes from my paycheck, and sometimes I still end up paying more on April 15. I don't understand how a teacher--who still spends $1000+ on yearly school supplies (books mostly)--still has to pay. I mean, I practically donate my money back into the classroom, and all I get a $250 deductible. It's true that I don't have any kids of my own to spoil, so my money goes back into my work where I use it for the students anyway. Tax time makes me realize the futility of my job and that it really is a thankless career to the government and to the politicians.
Then I realized this ugly thing about taxes--which has nothing to do with my job. As my brother-in-law breathes a sigh of relief at how easy his taxes are, especially since he's married, I begin to realize that married people have it easy with their finances... and how Christian values have influenced the machinery of economics and government. Married couples--people who have dual income--get less money taken from them, but a single person like myself is squeezed dry like a broken piggy bank. I think that's our government's way of promoting nuclear family values: "Get married, procreate, and we take less money from you because you are ensuring the security of American morality." But if you're single, the government will punish you: "We'll take more money because you are living the hedonistic life and promoting immorality and breaking down family values."
I'm not poor, but when my money is taken from me, I really feel cheated and unappreciated. Not to mention that I feel like that half the year already from the shit I have to deal with from school district bureaucracy. I'm a teacher and unappreciated. I'm single and I'm scolded financially. I live in California, the most progressively backward state in the Union.
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