Tax Time Looms...

And here are my thoughts:

Taxpayers in the top 20% of the population by income – and those people account for 52.4% of the income earned in this country – pay 82.5% of the taxes. Those in the next 20% pay 14.3% of the taxes while earning 20.7% of the income; the next 20% pay 5.2% of the taxes while earning 14.2% of the income; the next 20% pay 0.3% of the taxes, and 9.2% of the income; and the bottom 20% pay minus 2.3% of the taxes (in other words, they got money without ever paying in the first place) while earning 4.2% of the income. Dividing the numbers up in a slightly different way, the bottom half of income tax payers pay only 3.3% of the income tax paid.

IRS statistics for 2006 show that 45.6 million tax filers – 1/3 of all filers – have NO tax liability after taking their credits and deductions. (This is a 57% increase since 2000 - and the concern is that there has been a similar increase since 2006, not yet reported.)

How invested are these non-tax-payers in making sure their government is accountable? Is it desirable, in a representative form of government like our Republic, to have so many American voters disconnected from the cost of government? While they are voting for people who are going to be using our tax system to fund social policy?

People who pay no taxes but are nevertheless beneficiaries of government handouts are less likely to include ‘careful oversight of government’ as one of their voting mandates. We are rapidly approaching the point where the people who pay for government will have no say in it. And after the non-payers vote themselves more and more government handouts, at some point the 'payers' won't be able to manage the burden - and then what?

It doesn't inspire confidence as we dig, once again, deep into our checkbook to pay our tax bill this year. Didn't we, at one point in our revered history, revolt against taxation without representation?

Daffodils

Meg Ryan, in "You've Got Mail" said that daisies are the happiest flower (in what Mark calls 'one of the worst movies of all time.') I think she was wrong - the happiest flower is a daffodil. Daisies can happen any time but daffodils are the heralds of spring - what a wonderful thing.

I planted bulbs in the front yard the first year we were here - and they came up beautifully and I was thrilled. I thought they'd come back year after year and multiply on their own. But, boy, was I wrong. The next year they came up but got stymied by our emergency-drainage-problem-digging and the ones that survived showed up as spindly two leaf teasers and never produced a bud. The next year, same thing. I pulled them up. My garden space is not for the faint or frail. Or the stingy plant. Perform or else!

So last fall I planted more - hopefully a stronger, heartier variety - in the back yard instead, where they would get full sun. And they, and their little blue companions, are just out there blooming their little hearts out. I am so pleased.

They just look happy, don't they?

Bremerton by Ferry

We took a little day trip to Bremerton via the ferry on the lovely sunny day yesterday. The mountain, from the Sound (60 miles away and so covered in snow that it can hardly be distinguished from the horizon) is always fascinating, as are the starfish on the bottom of the water, showing up in the sun...