CHAPTER 1 Taking Government for Granted It’s easy to take your government for granted If we need help in an emergency we simply dial 911 and the police or firefighters head to your house right away If we need to go somewhere we hop on a bus a subway or a highway When we retire the government provides us with health insurance if we don’t already have our own And when we turn on the faucet clean water comes out All these things and many more have been there throughout our lives so we tend to forget the hard work that goes into providing them There was a time in American history when such services were little more than a dream They developed over time as people needed them and the funds that make them possible come from taxes and other fees Where do the various government bodies get those funds From you 4 21st century skills library
Police officers are employed by state and local government Photo Caption A CITIZEN’S GUIDE 5 5
In the Boston Tea Party colonists threw tea overboard to protest against the high taxes on it 6 21st century skills library
The American Revolution 1775 1783 was fought partly in protest against taxes The colonists were still being taxed by England even though no one in the British government had their interests in mind No taxation without representation became the colonists motto The first income tax in the United States was imposed in the 1860s in order to fund the Civil War Once the war was over some lawyers became concerned about the constitutional legality of continuing to take a portion of people’s earnings In 1913 an amendment was added to the Constitution the 16th Amendment making an income tax legal Life and Career Skills It’s against the law to avoid paying taxes But sometimes people refuse to pay them because they don’t like how the money is being used Do you think people should ever break laws to support their beliefs Why or why not A CITIZEN’S GUIDE 7777
