Давно хотел перенести из комментариев от Натальи Сергеевны Епифановой , но всё некогда ...
Давно хотел перенести из комментариев от Натальи Сергеевны Епифановой , но всё некогда и некогда. Про осознание ценности общественных благ. ___________________________ TAXES By Edward Guest, 1917 When they become due I don’t like them at all. Taxes look large be they ever so small Taxes are debts which I venture to say, No man or no woman is happy to pay. I grumble about them, as most of us do. For it seems that with taxes I never am through. But when I reflect on the city I love, With its sewers below and its pavements above, And its schools and its parks where children may play I can see what I get for the money I pay. And I say to myself: “Little joy would we know If we kept all our money and spent it alone.” I couldn’t build streets and I couldn’t fight fire Policemen to guard us I never could hire. A water department I couldn’t maintain. Instead of a city we’d still have a plain Then I look at the bill for the taxes they charge, And I say to myself: “Well, that isn’t so large.” I walk through a hospital thronged with the ill And I find that it shrivels the size of my bill. As in beauty and splendor my home city grows, It is easy to see where my tax money goes And I say to myself: “if we lived hit and miss And gave up our taxes, we couldn’t do this.”