Red Meat and Taxes

Tim and I sat across from each other at Johnny's, both eating our sinful Saturday dinner, red meat and french fries, MGD and Laughing Lab. Around us people were flirting, working on their second or third drink, watching the baseball and football games that festooned the upper walls.
I was lecturing.
Tim had asked, "Would you be willing to pay 20% sales tax?"
"No, that's a regressive tax!" I quoted my liberal-for-Fort-Worth college econ teacher, went on about how we all have to buy toilet paper, but a 20% tax on a $6.00 roll hits a minimum-wage earner much harder than Tim or me; never mind the rich folks.
I'd just gone on a rant about 2C, and how a city isn't a city, not really, if there are no parks or museums or public pools.
Don't blame me; I spent the afternoon at the Eco Fair at Rock Ledge Ranch, buttonholing people about the need to approve a comparatively minor increase in their property taxes to enable the city to provide these services. And I have the yard signs to prove it.
Over and over, I got the comment, "well, if the city would manage the money they already have, better, they wouldn't have these problems. "
But nobody was able to tell me what exactly they wanted the city to cut. A middle aged man did suggest that the city manager didn't need to make as much.
"How much does she make?" I asked the knowledgeable city employee next to me.
"$245,000, or so," he replied.
A lot of money, but not as much as the CEO with a comparable number of employees would make.
An elderly lady stopped by, and wanted to know if the taxes would keep increasing at the rate set for the 5 years forever. No, of course they wouldn't; but I had no proof.
So it went; actually, most of the people who stopped by the booth were quite positive. But this was, after all, an Eco-fair; we were getting the most liberal slice of the population.
Now, Tim asked another question. "How much is enough?"
"Enough what?"
"How much is enough money taken out of your paycheck for taxes? 30%, 40, 50 90%?"
He was being ridiculous, but I was too relaxed not to rise to the bait.
"It would depend on what the money was going for, wouldn't it? I mean, I don't like my money going to military contractors, or to service loans the Feds have taken out to fund a war that is unnecessary and wasteful.."
My voice was rising. I suddenly noticed that the men seated behind Tim had military-style haircuts. Time to alter the tenor of my rant a bit.
"I don't have a problem with military pay, understand. I just don't like it going to Halliburton subsidiaries who, on top of everything, do shoddy work."
And so it went. Tim, of course, works for one of the biggest military contractors of them all. Sometimes I wonder how he puts up with my slant, and my tendency to lecture about it.
Especially since he'd just spent the day helping the son of a friend move, and was so tired he visibly listed on the way to the bathroom.
I guess he likes curly-haired, argumentative women.