I was recently forwarded yet another “joke” about all the “freeloaders that the decent taxpayers of our society are forced to support.” I’ve edited punctuation, syntax and grammar for clarity.

In the joke a Texas man is filling out his tax form and,

In answer to the question, ‘Do you have any dependents?’, I wrote in: “Yes, I have lots of dependent’s. I’m supporting: illegal immigrants; crack heads; unemployable bastards; seemingly the cast of The Jerry Springer Show; 80,000 people in our 133 penal establishments in Texas; leftovers in Texas from Katrina; half of Mexico; some of the Congress and most of the Senate; a super-bloated bureaucracy at every level; and a foreign-born President”

Gosh, apparently this wasn’t an acceptable answer.

Now this guy is clearly an ass without a lot of sympathy for his fellow Americans in need. With the exception of illegal immigrants, the people he lists are all victims of circumstance: people addicted to drugs, who can’t find work (not the same as unemployable), who have been displaced by a natural disaster, and the like. And he’s clearly someone who can’t accept reality, still insisting that the legitimately elected President of the United States is “foreign-born” even though Hawaii (even though it’s in the Pacific, it is a State.) has produced his birth certificate.

But what is particularly annoying is

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that so often these myths are most often being forwarded online by retirees who receive Social Security and Medicare, systems we are told with increasing frequency may not be there when those currently in the work force retire.  Others don’t have time to forward this stuff because they are working and therefore paying taxes, or they are looking for work.

Now here’s the kick in the pants.  Many of those looking for work are still paying taxes that go to underwrite some of the benefits received by the retirees who are forwarded these lies. Unemployment benefits are reported to the IRS and to state taxation authorities. They are subject to income taxes on the federal level and in some states.  You may even be surprised to find that many illegal immigrants pay taxes. Because IRS data is not routinely shared with law enforcement, and because employers are not willing to break the law by knowingly hiring illegals, people in the country illegally will sometimes simply allow income taxes to be withheld so that they appear legal, realizing they have no hope of accessing the benefits. They may provide false social security numbers, or they may use the number of someone who is deceased or who they know has gone back to their home country.  Hence, those illegal immigrants are paying into the system, and accessing nothing.  Illegal immigrants are not a drain on our social safety net in the way people think.  They live underground and do not seek to call attention to themselves, so why would they avail themselves of social services?

Baby Boomers are often called the Greatest Generation and I’ll not belittle the enormous sacrifices of they had to make, living through the Great Depression and World War II. But history didn’t end then, and people have been called on to make sacrifices at home and abroad ever since, as well.  People have served their fellow citizens and their country in many ways since the 30s and 40s.  Moreover, Baby Boomers could rest assured they they would see standards of living improve during their lifetime.  Today we no longer have that luxury.

So the retiree who sent around that joke may be paying taxes to support the unemployment benefits of a young man who lost his job, but the young man’s unemployment benefits are also being taxed to pay for the older man’s entitlements. That is the kind of bargain we make in a civilized society and that is why this is the UNITED State of America.  I kind of like it that way and it has worked out well so far.  It can continue to work, but we all just need to be willing to make some of the sacrifices the previous generations made for us and for one another.