In our society, an unavoidable burden is taxes. Recently, the tax burden in Japan has become increasingly heavy, and there are growing calls for political responsibility.

　“Taxes forcibly take a portion of  what we earn.”

　While this expression may sound a bit ominous, it is not an exaggeration in the sense that we have no way to avoid it.

　Why does the government have the right to forcibly take money from us, the citizens? Aside from its historical background and legal basis, we citizens also possess a certain kind of “forcible right” against the government. That is, the right to vote.

　Just as the government can forcibly deprive us of our money in the form of taxation, we can also decide whether the government lives or dies in the form of voting in elections. In other words, the right to tax and the right to vote are powers to oppose each other.

　However, there is something that we, the citizens, must seriously consider. That is, the government exercises 100% of its right to tax against us, but how much do we, as citizens, actually exercise our right to vote (which is supposed to be a countervailing force) against the government?

　In Japan, the voter turnout in national elections is around 50%. This means that while the government is taking ¥1,000,000 from us, we, the citizens, are only claiming ¥500,000 of that amount. In other words, the other ¥500,000 is left in a state of “feel free to use it as you wish!”

　In this light, it can be said that the “political responsibility” mentioned at the beginning of this article is nothing other than the “responsibility of us, the citizens.”