2018: When Paying for Our Values Gets Complicated

We talk a big game about taxes, until the bill actually shows up in our inbox. This week I'm digging into a question that's been nagging at me ever since Montclair, one of the most progressive towns in New Jersey, split down the middle over a special election to cover a $20 million school budget deficit. It wasn't that people stopped believing in public schools. It was more like, prove to me this actually fixes anything. That flinch, the gap between what we say we believe and what we're willing to pay for, is exactly what financial planner Georgia Lee Hussey has been sitting with. Georgia is the founder of Modernist Financial, https://modernistfinancial.com/ and she's noticed something uncomfortable happening even in deeply progressive circles: a growing resistance to taxes, alongside language that sounds a lot like the anti-government scripts used by anti-democratic movements. We get into: The Portland preschool tax story that started Georgia down this rabbit holeWhy there's such a gap between "I support this policy" and "I resent paying for it"Whether this is really about money, or about trust, especially with trust in government sitting at a historic lowWhat "paying" can look like beyond a check: time, civic skills, citizen journalism, showing upThe line between healthy skepticism of government spending and something more corrosiveWhat Georgia saw in Vienna, where a huge share of residents live in subsidized housing, and what (if anything) that model could teach an American system built on individual tradeoffsHer advice for a median-income family when no amount of smart financial planning can solve housing, elder care, or college costs on its own How's midlife going? Fill out Farnoosh's survey https://www.jotform.com/build/262556781257063 and help shape the podcast in 2027. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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• 1:30Speaker 03

  So Money Episode 2018, When Paying for Our Values Gets Complicated.

• 1:37Speaker 04

  You're listening to So Money with award-winning money guru Farnoosh Torabi. Each day, get a 30-minute dose of financial inspiration from the world's top business minds, authors, influencers, and from Farnoosh herself. Looking for ways to save on gas or double your double coupons? Sorry, you're in the wrong place. Seeking profound ways to live a richer, happier life? Welcome to So Money.

• 2:04Speaker 05

  There is a narrative right now that government is inefficient.

• 2:09Speaker 03

  Right.

• 2:10Speaker 05

  And I find this super interesting because we also live in a city with a couple really big corporations and consequently, I'm sort of in environments with people who are around those corporations and the amount of waste that they produce is gross. But nobody's being like, hey, big company, you shouldn't waste your money. There's this, there's, it feels like there's a double standard in how we talk about the efficiencies of humans getting together in institutions to try to solve problems. And it feels like at the governmental level, we're setting a standard that I don't know

• 2:49Speaker 05

  that we can meet, given the amount of crises that are piling on to state and local governments.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  Welcome to So Money, everyone. I'm Farnoosh Torabi. Today, we're asking a question that I think a lot of us feel, but we don't really discuss out loud. Are progressives slash Democrats, liberals, people like me, becoming anti-tax? So a little context. Here in Montclair, New Jersey, where I live, we recently had a special election. The question on the ballot was, how do we pay back a $20 million school budget deficit? 20 million. And here's the thing about Montclair, if you don't know it already, we are a very progressive town, maybe the most progressive in New Jersey. This is the town where there are yard signs about kindness. We vote blue by enormous margins. And on this vote, the town was split, even though many people will tell you, the reason

• 3:41Speaker 03

  they moved to Montclair is for the public schools. So this split was not because people don't love education, or because people don't believe in public education. A lot of the no votes were actually coming from a really legit place. People wanted to know, will this money actually be used properly this time? Are we just going to be back here in three years, having this same vote because nothing structural changed? It wasn't anti-tax as much, as much as it was, prove to me, you're going to do the right thing with this money. This won't happen again. And that split in a town like mine is exactly the kind of thing today's guest has been thinking about because historically liberals have been pretty comfortable with

• 4:22Speaker 03

  tax increases as long as they believe that money would produce a real societal benefit. It's kind of been the deal. But my guest today says she is noticing a shift even in deeply progressive communities like hers, where she lives in Portland. There's a growing hesitation, even a flinch, when the bill comes due. Georgia Lee Hussey is a financial planner and founder of Modernist Financial. She has spent her career helping people plan their financial lives. But lately, she's been asking a very big question. Are progressives becoming anti-tax? And if so, what's it about? Is it about the money? Is it about something else entirely? Do we trust our institutions to spend it well? She's also noticed something that unsettles her.

• 5:06Speaker 03

  Some of that frustration is starting to echo language that anti-democratic movements have used for a long time. And she just got back from Vienna, where a huge share of residents live in subsidized housing. And that got her rethinking, what would it even look like if we stopped treating things like housing and childcare as problems that we each have to solve alone? So today, we're talking about trust, about taxes, and about what it really means to pay for the things that we believe in. Here's Georgia.

• 5:37Speaker 03

  Georgia Lee Hussey, welcome back to So Money.

• 5:40Speaker 05

  Oh, it's so good to be here, always.

• 5:43Speaker 03

  You have brought something really meaty to my attention. And I, at first, I was like, I don't know. But then I thought about it and I said, well, certainly, I feel like I'm observing this in our very liberal town of Montclair, New Jersey. You're in, you're in Portland. You just came back from, I think it was Austria.

• 6:02Speaker 05

  Vienna, yeah.

• 6:03Speaker 03

  Sorry, Vienna. And, and this, there's this, I don't know if it's, we can say it's a new thing, but maybe we can. And I want to hear your thoughts on what you're observing with respect to, quote unquote, progressives and their feelings about paying taxes. What are you, what are you seeing?

• 6:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, it sort of started out as an uncomfortable murmur in the back of my mind in the conversations I was having, the sort of, oh, I didn't expect you to say that. Oh, that's interesting. I didn't expect resistance about this. I didn't, anyway, just sort of, whether I'm in a tax planning meeting, or the clients that we work with are very wealthy, people who are hiring modernists specifically because they want to understand what enough is, and they understand there are systemic issues that have made their

• 7:02Speaker 05

  lives easier and other people's clearly not as easeful. And so that frame, knowing that we're all, we all identify as progressive and we're all interested in these conversations, has made it sort of a little sneaky, this sense that something's changing. And, and so I feel like I started hearing it maybe six years ago, five years ago, and then it's really picked up steam and really since COVID. Maybe it's eight years ago and then COVID really started ramping up the issue.

• 7:40Speaker 03

  Can you give me a really concrete example? Like, take me to one of these meetings recently?

• 7:45Speaker 05

  Hmm. So, you may or may not know, Portland now has one of the highest tax rates in the country. We're behind New York, but not barely. And California, if you combine it with our state taxes, it's a, it's a very high tax rate. And that is in part because Portland is a little bit of a laboratory for progressive policy, because we have had a history where we just, we'll, we'll vote for some crazy ass ideas, to be honest. And that hasn't worked out particularly well in the last six years because we decriminalized small amounts of drugs in the November 2019 election.

• 8:33Speaker 05

  And then they were decriminalized as COVID started and fentanyl spiked.

• 8:37Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 8:38Speaker 05

  So there weren't the operational infrastructure for places for people to detox and be put into treatment. It was just decriminalized. And suddenly you could get high for eight aluminum can bottles or aluminum cans. And this is an example of, so we have this problem, we decriminalize, then we start a metro housing bill that basically adds an extra local tax that's trying to address the housing crisis that most of us on the coasts are experiencing. You and I have, are the value of our house go up, but then other people can't buy housing.

• 9:20Speaker 05

  And so we're all sort of in this issue. So what I have noticed is when it comes to paying their metro housing tax, or we also have a preschool for all tax, people just complain about it in a way that I'm like, I know you believe in people being housed. I know you're concerned about houselessness. I know you're concerned about feminism and women of color having access to career growth. And when it comes down to you writing this check, there's something, there's another dialogue or monologue happening. And, and it's, and it's, it's quiet, but very present. Does that make, does that?

• 9:59Speaker 03

  I get it. I get it. So let's, when you, do you, do you address this with your clients? I'm sure you do.

• 10:04Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 10:05Speaker 03

  Can I get to the, the why of it? What is the why of it?

• 10:10Speaker 05

  Um, well, I think there's a few issues. I, I think there is a narrative right now that government is inefficient.

• 10:23Speaker 03

  Right.

• 10:24Speaker 05

  And I find this super interesting because we also live in a city with a couple really big corporations and consequently I'm sort of.

• 10:36Speaker 05

  In environments with people who are around those corporations, and the amount of waste that they produce is gross. But nobody's being like, hey, big company, you shouldn't waste your money. There's this, there's, it feels like there's a double standard in how we talk about the efficiencies of humans getting together in institutions to try to solve problems. And it feels like at the governmental level, we're setting a standard that I don't know that we can meet, given the amount of crises that are piling on to state and local governments. Does that make sense?

• 11:12Speaker 03

  Yeah. But they're not saying, certainly, like, it's, it, I think, I see what you're saying is like this disconnect. But do you find any merit to their hesitation? Because systems are broken. Writing a check for a tax can be arguably less productive and efficient than donating to a cause directly that's going to use every dollar of that, of that contribution, right?

• 11:44Speaker 05

  But I disagree with that. I don't think that's actually true. I think that's part of the narrative that

• 11:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 11:49Speaker 05

  I, as an individual consumer, can control my money and send it to a nonprofit that's going to use my money for the thing I intend. And, um, but when we do that, we're just actually supporting the problem. We're saying that it's not the government's responsibility, it's the nonprofit's responsibility, who have no legal right to policy, to advocate for policy change or to sue for change. So it's, it's, it can be a way to fund the Band-Aid.

• 12:19Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  But I don't think it's a solution at the long term. And I think that's where I feel a little stuck because

• 12:29Speaker 05

  We both run businesses, right? If you want to change something in your business, you and I both know it can take two, three, four years to envision the thing you want to change, build out the infrastructure and move the ship. And we have relatively small ships. If we do that at a governmental level, I think there's a way in which we're just not acknowledging how hard and complicated and erratic change can be when we are funding a tax that is specifically intended to change the system.

• 12:59Speaker 03

  Well, you know, earlier we were saying, before we were recording, I had a hunch that progressives or liberals or Democrats, you know, we historically have been not pro-tax, but we've been sort of more okay with raising taxes if it meant benefiting the greater good, the social good. So I wanted to see like, how has that shifted? Has it shifted? So there was a recent bipartisan Policy Center poll. It found that over half of Democrats, 52%, report being dissatisfied with government spending, compared with just 36% of Republicans, which is a reversal of the historical pattern where Democrats were usually more comfortable

• 13:44Speaker 03

  with government spending. You mentioned in the last eight years, who has been in office in the last eight-ish years, right? Give or take, right?

• 13:53Speaker 05

  Yes, exactly.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  I don't know if I can say, if we can say that it is like circumstantial or if this is like the new normal. But does that give you more fodder for the resistance?

• 14:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, even before the most recent frame of this, I've often heard people like, "I just don't feel good about paying federal taxes because so much of it goes to the war, to go to, goes to military."

• 14:20Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 14:20Speaker 05

  Usually the sort of left perspective. And there, I often showed this graphic that took a dollar of your tax bill and broke it down into what it actually goes for. And the vast majority of it goes to Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, education, things we believe in. But it's like that last 20%, yeah, we want it to be perfect. Now, this might be a symptom of a deeper problem on the left, which I think we do have that issue. We want things to be perfect instead of just good enough to happen.

• 14:55Speaker 05

  I think that gut feeling has gotten significantly inflated by the recent, basically 45 and 47. Now we're like, oh, well, he's actually unwinding the government.

• 15:11Speaker 05

  I paid my taxes and now they're not going to the NEH and then NEA and education. Like I said, they're, they're deconstructing the Department of Education, et cetera. But the core problem is, I'm like, yeah, but there's still people on food stamps who need them. It's just like, we, it's almost like, can we hold the both and?

• 15:33Speaker 03

  This is what I love about you, actually, Georgia Lee, because you, you know, we've had conversations before where you're like, the IRS isn't that bad, guys. You know, like IRS is, you know, as much of, and so there are these narratives, right? And I've come to really not warm up to Uncle Sam, but like also realize that, like I have friends who are like, I don't know if I can pay my tax bill. It's going to be so high. And I'm like, relax, the IRS has payment plans. The last thing they want is for you to not pay your tax. If it can't be right on time, there are ways to work around it. And the interest rate, if you get an interest rate, is very, very low. Like the penalty is worth the peace of mind to be able to pay this off over time.

• 16:18Speaker 03

  So I've come to sort of appreciate the IRS more, thanks to our conversations.

• 16:23Speaker 05

  That's great.

• 16:26Speaker 05

  But like, well, I did not expect that appreciation to come from a very progressive, gay woman living in Portland, Oregon.

• 16:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, totally.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  You don't fit the criteria, you don't fit the stereotype. You just don't fit the stereotype.

• 16:41Speaker 03

  Well, I think it's because my own people are now fighting against the IRS. And I'm like, hey, hey, hey, these are neighbors, civil servants, who are just trying to do a job to fund the government. Like they're, they're only, they're only, they just have a job to do. I don't want to, I don't want to hate my grocery delivery dude because they're out of firm tofu. You know, like, it's just not fair. I don't know, there's this way in which we're.

• 17:06Speaker 05

  Demonizing an idea when that idea is made up of us.

• 17:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:11Speaker 05

  The government is us. And when we externalize it, that is an alt-right strategy. That is a very intentional, historically precedented attempt by the right to make us not believe in taxes and not believe in government and therefore disengage from the systems of self-government.

• 17:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  And that's, that's where I'm like,

• 17:36Speaker 05

  are we willing to, are we willing to question our assumptions in the stories we tell ourselves about our resources and money?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  You know, what's, there's, there's being unhappy about paying your taxes and then there's just trying to avoid them altogether, like some really wealthy people that we all know about. And what's the harm in just being like, ugh?

• 18:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:03Speaker 03

  I mean, it's a feeling. Is it consuming them? Is it making them, is it showing up in other more dangerous things that they could stop doing? You know, I think, I think just comparatively, they're probably like, in their mind, I'm not trying to excuse them, I'm just trying to like, understand where they're coming from. Like, maybe that some of them are thinking, some of your clients are thinking like, I don't love that we have an inaccessible childcare system in our country. I guess I'll pay this local tax, but it, I'm not, I'm not confident it's gonna, it's gonna solve for many people's problems, but I'll do it, whatever, I'll do it anyway.

• 18:45Speaker 03

  But I think they're just like, okay, fine.

• 18:49Speaker 05

  Well, and I, what I find interesting is the dissonance between the reporting I'm hearing from the organizations that are actually pushing forward these taxes, these programs, and the narrative about the tax and the program. And this might have to do a little bit with local media, where there's a little bit of a gotcha journalism about government and...

• 19:14Speaker 05

  I just wish it was a little bit more like they are making progress. They're 80% to their goal. They're not 100% of where they were supposed to be, but they're 80% and they're these systemic issues. And there's this problem that's real and we should address it. But there's a little bit of the frame that gets picked up by the public is let's just throw the whole thing out because there's one bad actor or one really bright sparkling thing to focus on about why we don't like it. And I'm like, you still can't, preschool is still $3,000 a month for my colleague. That as a business owner is far more troubling to me than me paying a $17,000 bill or a $30,000 bill. I'm like, I don't have kids.

• 19:56Speaker 05

  I don't really like children, to be perfectly honest. But I want them to go to school and I want them to be engaged citizens because I need them to vote for our collective benefit when I'm 80 years old and they should care about me as an old woman.

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• 24:08Speaker 03

  So what do you see is really the the causes for this mindset? We talked about a media narrative. We talked about our own assumptions about what it means to contribute to a nonprofit versus paying our taxes. What else are we missing that we can we can address?

• 24:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'll dig into that charity piece a little bit more. There's a movement, maybe to call it effective altruism. Have you ever heard of this term?

• 24:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 24:37Speaker 05

  Okay, so it sort of comes from the broligarks. They all are like, ah, we can make the perfect donation. And I think that's an interesting part of this narrative of I can optimize my donations. What's interesting about that frame is oftentimes there's a look at administrative costs for the organizations that you're that you're supporting. If they're too high, important thing to consider. But underneath that is a mandate to keep your payroll and benefits down for the people who actually make your organization run. And so there's this interesting, it feels like a very similar frame of

• 25:22Speaker 05

  I can make this ideal and it can prove to me that it's doing a good job. And I'm I'm sort of thinking as a donor.

• 25:34Speaker 05

  That's a lot of responsibility to put on the organization that I'm supporting. And now they're spending a lot of time building data to prove to me that they're doing their job, which requires people to produce the data when they could just go do their job and I could trust them. Like Mackenzie Scott is my example of the best way to donate money is find a hero, give them money and go away. Don't ask them for anything else. And she does it in the millions of dollars and tens of millions of dollars, but you and I could do it in the $50 and just be like, I believe you're doing good out there. So I think that's... We've got sort of the perfect is the enemy of the good. I can control this. And by I can control this, I think that's actually about my anxiety.

• 26:19Speaker 05

  I know something feels uncertain. And so if I have just a little bit more control, I'll feel better, which of course we see in investing behavior as well. It's like, oh, the market's being crazy. I'm going to get out. I'm like, no, please God, don't do that.

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Oh, my God. When I still hear that from financial planners who manage very wealthy people's assets, she's like, oh, yeah, they always call when the market's down. I'm like, who are these people?

• 26:47Speaker 05

  I know.

• 26:48Speaker 03

  Who are these people? I need to find them and we need to sit down and have a cup of tea and really like look at, examine what they're doing and how it's not effective. But it's more people than we think.

• 27:03Speaker 05

  Oh, and I think again, this comes back to some, it always comes back to some part of their own history. You know, they're like, what is the story you're telling yourself that makes you believe you can outguess the market?

• 27:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 27:17Speaker 05

  No, you just literally can't. There's no data to support that. But there is this feeling that I am anxious and I can take control by hitting sell. And I'm like, but when are you going to hit buy? Like, that's a problem.

• 27:30Speaker 03

  Exactly. And I think we feel like these down points will be forever, that there is not a cutoff for a sell-off.

• 27:40Speaker 05

  That's where I think we have this moment where we can, if we are trying to be intentional in the way we operate around resources, we can start to identify the the general story and be like, oh, that's funny. I just said this thing about my local government. Do I actually know that's true? I don't even want people to say, they don't even have to say it's not true. I just want us to ask, do I actually know that's true? Or am I repeating something else I heard? I mean, this is your podcast.

• 28:11Speaker 03

  This is my podcast. I've been laughing because the Montclair Pod was a hyperlocal podcast. I am now, I have the privilege of being on the receiving end of so many people's conspiracy theories about why the school district has debt. You know, what's really going on with that business down the street? You know, like, and I always, my motto is to just say, my MO is just to say, I don't not believe you, but I would love to share the story that you're telling me when there are facts. So like, get the facts and we will make it a story. Like, I'm not shutting my door on this story. I'm just saying, like, come back when you have receipts. Because then it's a story.

• 28:54Speaker 03

  Then I can't like get sued for just, you know, sharing these, you know, blasphemous things about all these people that, you know, you can dislike someone and you can think someone's shady, but that's not a news story.

• 29:07Speaker 05

  No, but in in our citizen journalism of social media, it is. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

• 29:15Speaker 03

  But you're right, social media allows for that. And, you know, people forget what journalism actually is. But in any case, you had just come back from Vienna.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:29Speaker 03

  And you notice there that, you know, it's a different way of life, obviously, in many ways, but especially the way they relate to money and and plan around money. Can you talk a little about the differences and what's worth maybe bringing over the the ocean?

• 29:48Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 29:50Speaker 05

  Well, I, when I travel, I'm a little annoying to the tour guides I hire because I'm like, "Tell me about your financial life." Because I'm just so fascinated. How much money do you make? Yeah, exactly. It normally comes up sort of naturally because people who don't live in America think we're insane, think our structures are lunatic. And it comes out in little ways because they know, "Oh, we have to pay a lot of money for healthcare." And they sort of like, "Wow, that..." They'll talk about that. But then I start pulling on the thread. I'm like, "Oh, how much does college cost for you here?" Et cetera. So I asked Yasha, who runs an amazing tour guide, tour company in Vienna, which I can

• 30:29Speaker 05

  find the show note name for. And he has two little kids. He has them in private preschool, which is 250 euros a month. What? For Waldorf-style preschool. What? Public preschool, he's like, "I know, it's really sad. They have to pay for food." And I was like, "Haha, that's, that's, that's..." True in America, too. Yeah. And I'm like, and I'm pretty sure that like the Head Start parents or teachers are probably bringing in their own food for these kids. So that was one. I started with preschool because he had two little kids he talked about. I was like, "So what's college

• 31:10Speaker 05

  like?" And he said, "Oh, well, you have to finish in four years, but it's paid for free for four years." And I thought, "Okay." And then I was like, "What about elder care?" And he said, "Well, you know, we have in-home care and they'll come to your home and they'll take, you know, yada, yada." And I was like, "Okay." And I was like, "What about healthcare?" And he said, "Well, you know, people have private care they add on top, but everybody has universal healthcare." And the list goes on and on, right? But what I find interesting for our purposes, Farnoosh, is...

• 31:43Speaker 05

  Austria is one of the oldest monarchies in Europe. And it went on for centuries of semi-colonialist rule. And then it all fell apart at the beginning of the 1900s. And they took, there were people doing planning, like policy wonks in the background, doing planning, preparing for the moment when they had enough change space in the government to be able to put through social housing. And now the city of Vienna owns 40% of the housing. And housing costs like 15% to 20% of your income, max. And it's limited.

• 32:27Speaker 05

  And I'm talking about inside the city housing. And it's developed by the city. It's designed by the city. Some of the original buildings are designed by some of the most famous architects in Europe. And what's interesting is that now people live in the same building and neighborhood for generations. So families get to grow up around each other. They don't move. People our age and of our economic bracket may or may not own a house. Because they might say, I don't, why would I spend my money on that? I get great, I love the housing. I'm right next to my grandmother.

• 33:03Speaker 03

  Right.

• 33:04Speaker 05

  So I just imagine, I was sitting there, I was like, wow. I, as a financial planner, I'm not needed for most people in Vienna. And that is great. I wish financial planners were not needed in America.

• 33:16Speaker 03

  Oh, wow. Because, yeah.

• 33:20Speaker 05

  Ideally.

• 33:21Speaker 03

  Right. Yeah, well, are you trying to?

• 33:25Speaker 05

  Ideally, I would just be for rich people. You know, who have like complex situations that are hard to navigate.

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Family money, right.

• 33:32Speaker 05

  Family money, or like complex businesses, or...

• 33:36Speaker 05

  You know, there, I think it's a skill set that should not need to happen for everyday middle-class people because I'm sorry, Farinush, as you know, the math is impossible.

• 33:47Speaker 03

  Yeah. I remember being in Mexico and our tour guide, he was from France, I want to say, and moved to Mexico and can, could live off of his tour guide income, which is not true in America. I would, I would venture to guess that tour guides here have three or four other kinds of jobs, or they're working seven days a week and they're making, they're barely making ends meet. So, that's fascinating. What brought you to Vienna?

• 34:21Speaker 05

  My former partner and I wanted to go for a last trip. He's, he's been ill. And so we decided to go to Vienna because the classical music is amazing. The architecture's amazing. The Wiener Werkstatt is there, which is the precursor to modernism in architecture and design. So it was, it was really just hear a lot of amazing classical music. The food was not as good as, you know, it's German.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  No, I guess.

• 34:48Speaker 05

  It was good. I mean, if you like, if you like sausage.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, Wiener Schnitzel, yeah.

• 34:53Speaker 05

  Yes, Wiener Schnitzel's really good, but at some point it's like.

• 34:56Speaker 03

  When I was in, I think, middle school, we all got a country and we had to bring a food from that country. And I brought strudel.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  Ah, I mean, it's delicious. It is a, it is a land of great cake.

• 35:08Speaker 03

  I was, I had Austria, so that was, which is, what you learn quickly is not Australia when you're like eight years old. It's a different country.

• 35:15Speaker 05

  They are different places. So the last thing I'm going to say about Austria and Vienna is that their tax rate's 50%. Now, when I looked at that, I was like, I would happily pay 50% for all those benefits because I literally can never save enough money to fulfill all those goals for myself.

• 35:32Speaker 03

  I mean, we, some of us are paying that here with state taxes, local taxes, federal taxes. Definitely in Montclair, some of us are paying more than 50% of our. Dollars.

• 35:43Speaker 05

  I think so. That's a good point. The last thing I would say that I think is interesting here is actually go to your tax return and take your total tax paid divided by your total income, total gross income, and figure out what your real effective tax rate or average tax rate is. Because I don't have, I have clients who make a pile of money and none of them pay close to that. They pay like, sometimes 35%.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Man, I need their, I need their public accountant. I need their accountant. I mean, you're right. It's a progressive tax ladder. So yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  Your top rate might be that high.

• 36:20Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:22Speaker 05

  On average, you're probably not very close to that. But that's a good thing. Again, this is about, is that really true? It's this question of like, am I saying that because I understand the numbers and how that's calculated? Or am I saying that because like my neighbor said that? And now I'm saying that because there's like an emotional to it?

• 36:42Speaker 03

  We love to complain. We love.

• 36:44Speaker 05

  Negativity bias is our natural way.

• 36:46Speaker 03

  We love feeling like we're being taken, you know, we don't love feeling it. We love to talk about it and, and.

• 36:52Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:53Speaker 03

  Express.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  I mean, a good kvetch is valuable.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  So before we go, is if someone's listening and they're flinching at their tax bill, local tax bill especially, what is something that you want, what's a reframe that you want them to walk away with?

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Yeah. I would think about what resources you have to approach this problem yourself. So do that, and that may just be time to research the situation. Go to the sites of the organizations that are running these programs and find out what is their most recent update. So that's one example, like, put a little bit of energy into figuring out whether it's really true and figure out what specifically about it is, is true. Like, is it the rollout of this program? Is it the staffing? Is it the, you know, whatever? So that when you do talk about it, your dissatisfaction, you have something specific to point to, not just the whole system.

• 37:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 37:52Speaker 05

  Because pointing to the whole system also tells my, me and you and yourself that there is no answer, because you've just damned the whole system. So I feel like we have to get more specific about what we are annoyed about.

• 38:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 38:05Speaker 05

  And, and bring the receipts for that annoyance.

• 38:07Speaker 03

  Bring the receipts. Georgia Lee Hussey, thank you so much for pushing our thinking around money. And, you know, this wasn't a solutions-driven episode. It wasn't, you know, like, here's the five tips for how to feel better about paying your taxes. But I think it's, once in a while, we really do have to sit back and just reflect how we reflect on money.

• 38:31Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 38:32Speaker 03

  And you have an incredible perspective, and we appreciate you.

• 38:36Speaker 05

  Thank you. Thank you so much, Farnes. Such a pleasure.

• 38:42Speaker 03

  Thanks to Georgia Lee Hussey for joining us. Check out Georgia's work at modernistfinancial.com. She has a whole section called Modernist University, free tools, a blog, investing insights, resources, a newsletter. Check it out, modernistfinancial.com. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope your day is so money.

• 39:14Speaker 00

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• 39:41Speaker 01

  Hey, we're Nick and Jack, hosts of The Best One Yet. Behind every episode, there's research, emails, spreadsheets, and our shared Google Doc, the Headline Hammer. With Google Workspace with Gemini, Google's AI is built right into the premium versions of tools we already use, like Gmail, Docs, and Sheets. No new tools or extra logins, just personalized AI for the way we work. That means less time on the work around the work and more time finding the stories worth talking about. Get AI tools for work. Upgrade to Google Workspace with Gemini at goole.gle/workspacewithGemini. That's goole.gle/workspacewithGemini.