Editorial: Truth, taxes and Sen. Budd's fib

When U.S. Sen. Ted Budd goes to work in his offices in Washington or North Carolina, the lights are on and his staff gets paid.

That's because honest people in North Carolina and the rest of the nation pay the taxes the laws say they owe.

It is the part each of us does to: Protect our nation's security at home and abroad; Provide an infrastructure that moves people and goods throughout the nation, preserves our natural heritage and gives shelter to conduct public discourse and; Seeks to provide a minimal level support to feed, shelter and prevent widespread disease in the nation.

Ted Budd doesn't want folks to pay the share of taxes the law says they owe. He doesn’t want those people who need help from the tax collector – the federal government’s Internal Revenue Service, to have adequate staff to help people with questions or to make sure they don’t pay a penny more or less than what is due.

He wants it to be more difficult for those who have questions or who need help to get it. He wants to make it easier for people to cheat on their taxes -- forcing the rest of us honest folks to take up the burden of supporting the nation --- including the tax scofflaws Budd cares so much more about.

What does Budd have against improving, or at least maintaining, customer service?

Among the agency’s workforce, the most common jobs – accounting for about 23,000 workers – involve answering inquiries and seasonal positions for handling mail or transcribing data.

Budd’s hardly been in the Senate a month and already is veering off on a bizarre, fanciful and troublingly dishonest tangent. He’s taken off on the wrong foot.

Taxes, in and of themselves, are neither good nor bad. In the hands of responsible and responsive representatives they are a common obligation to support the common good.

Does Budd promote people cheating on their taxes?

Is he urging dishonesty?

Budd’s constituents deserve a representative who deals with them truthfully, provides them with honest information and makes sure they’re treated fairly. That’s not too much to ask and shouldn’t be a challenge for Budd to fulfill.