Of Tea and Teabags

Up until the middle part of this past week, there certainly was plenty of talk around tea and teabags. Even after I had passed the point of annoyance with it all, my inner sophomoric galoot remained at least mildly amused.

Well, I’m sympathetic to a point. My 2008 tax withholding via my previous employer of nearly four years was erroneously short, catching me quite off guard when I finally set to the task, and I am presently feeling a bit of a pinch. I’m aware of others in far more dire circumstances with their tax bill, so I’m doing my best to keep my woe and indignation in check.

News flash: People don’t like paying taxes. Whoa, Nelly. Stop the presses.

I could not help but react with a combination chuckle-snort during the Wednesday April 15th broadcast of the Rachel Maddow Show, during which she observed that the lion’s share of the Tax Day tea protests appeared to have taken place in public parks; and that the public safety of the participants in same appeared to have been facilitated by police and EMTs. It’s a fair guess that such facilities and services were not paid for by private, out-of-pocket donations.

And this sets up both my current point, as well as an underlining of one of Tonic’s core tenets: to showcase people doing good.

In this case, the “people” are you, the taxpayer (with apologies for the implied exclusion of our readers elsewhere around the world), and the good we are doing — or that is being and will shortly be done on our behalf, with our tax dollars — through the following key environmental and energy components of the recently passed “stimulus,” officially called The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:

$8.5 billion in loans for renewable energy projects; $2.5 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy research; $11 billion for research and development for energy distribution infrastructure; $20 billion in tax incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency via wind, geothermal, hydropower and landfill gas; $6.3 billion in local government grants for improving public building energy efficiency; $4 billion to energy retrofit public housing units; $5 billion to increase energy efficiency in lower income households; $4.5 billion to make federal buildings more energy efficient; $1.4 billion for loans and grants for rural water and waste measures; $200 million for the Leaking Underground Storage Tank Trust Fund Program; $195 million for watershed management and flood protection.

Some might wish to debate the adequacy of the above, or to bemoan our not having done more sooner. As for me, I’m sincerely looking forward to seeing what fruit will bear from our contributions to the public good, through the energy and environmental initiatives listed above.

And I’m pleased to witness tea, and teabags, to now resume their rightful, normal conversational status.