[speaker001:] I guess my basic feeling is that as a middle income tax payer I'm not paying too much if I'm sure that I'm getting value for the dollar I mean that I guess sounds like a cliche but uh looking around at a a lot of the infrastructure particularly in the northeast here uh you know bridges and roads in terrible shape and I don't know I'm sort of overwhelmed by it all
[speaker002:] do you think that that's because the uh because the politicians have been seduced by the opportunity to get the vote uh so they've spent the money on on uh popular how should I say it programs that show up immediately you know like giving away uh uh let's see how shall I say it paying money to people that that uh  uh it it takes years for a bridge to begin to show neglect uh whereas a temporary uh  uh input of money can uh which they can never turn off by the way will get this guy votes
[speaker001:] yeah it's entirely possible certainly anything that's been discussed over the the last dozen years or so or maybe even longer in terms of of tax reform or or revenue reallocation seems to be concerned with just that you know who's who's gonna start getting more and how fast um I kind of came of age in the sixties and it seemed to me seems to me that the the general attitude in the entire country is a lot different then than now I mean I think there was more a a general sense of prosperity
[speaker002:] there was
[speaker001:] yeah although my oh excuse me
[speaker002:] I was just going to say there's significantly more money and we weren't a debtor nation in those days
[speaker001:] yeah I I've never been able to reconcile that fact which which does seem to be true with the fact that the typical middle class family today seems to have you know and expect some what more in terms of material possessions and vacations and what not but back then uh I think there is more of a sense of because there was a feeling of prosperity people did not mind paying for social programs for instance or public improvements and today there there seems to be a sort of a jealous guarding by each generation
[speaker002:] well I think two things have happened number one uh it's like uh  pay play now pay later uh somebody's we're we're to the point now where where the pay later is uh is here and and uh when I was growing up they always warned me against borrowing money to go on a vacation because you have all year long to think about those payments and it just goes by pretty fast well the play now pay later uh mentality uh sounded pretty good at the time when you when you had a fair amount of disposable income and uh
[speaker001:] um-hum
[speaker002:] um the the debt load is way up uh you know in the sixties what was the cost of tuition the cost of tuition in those days was was the cost of uh almost monthly rent today right I don't
[speaker001:] yeah pretty much I mean I I paid whatever something on the order of four thousand dollars a year for tuition and room and board and comprehensive fee and uh for those those figures have been dwarfed today certainly
[speaker002:] yeah I mean well I'm not saying monthly rent is four thousand dollars but but tuition uh I bet tuition was about a third of that uh
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] you know perhaps anyway what I'm saying is that everything costs more these days uh and we've reached a point where where people are like I say taxes are going up uh your expenses have gone up and the perhaps the thing that's more important uh uh progressive we are now making what uh what we used to think of as only the rich made you know the daily the minimum wage is let's see what is it when I was a I'm I graduated from college in sixty one and I can remember when I graduated I hoped someday to make eighteen thousand dollars a year and taxes on eighteen thousand a year uh were a whole lot less than uh you know taxes on what what I thought was a very good salary
[speaker001:] yeah
[speaker002:] um are about the same as they are today only I'm making