Tuesday, March 23, 2010

New Regular Stop

I hate numbers. I didn't always. I actually won a math contest when I was in elementary school. As a 7th grader I competed and beat 7th and 8th graders from fifty Chicago schools for a princely prize of a $50 savings bond. But then came college and the eccentricities of differential equations which separate the men from the political scientists. I've never been the same when it comes to number crunching.

It's that time of year. TurboTax lurks in the taskbar taunting me that the clock is running and I've got to face reality. I've hated March and April for more than a decade as every year I struggle to work through all of the carve-outs and exceptions in our tax code to try to decipher what might help me to avoid writing a check for five or ten thousand dollars next month. I'm retired, not a Wall Street broker for God's sake!

But, here's a new addition to the Regular Stops list who has taken the time to compile some numbers. They are worth a look because they ring very true for most of us:

What the Mandate Means for Productive Citizens

That's the shame of it all. We currently have a situation in which more than 40% of the population pays zero federal income tax. That's right, they are the beneficiaries of the largesse which gets our government re-elected. That means a venal politician need only attract another ten or fifteen percent of impressionable young people, liberal-minded Easterners, simpering academics, or Hollywood movie stars to take them over the top and into lifetime Washington tenure.

I'm not as optimistic as Dennis. I think this is actually going to proceed apace and we frogs will comment to each other how comfy the warming water is becoming.

1 comment:

Six said...

It was quadratic equations in speed from crush school that eventually fried my brain Ed.
But not as much as the dems in congress might wish. Not nearly.