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VIDEOUncle Sam Takes Salary, Leaves Allowance
Taxing our patience and our paychecks.
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You know the reason: payday.
Thanks to the wonders of direct deposit, the twice-monthly cash infusion creates the illusion of solvency. Then I pay the bills, keep my family fed, clothed, and housed, put some gas in the car, and try to save a little. The elite call this "living paycheck-to-paycheck."
My salary doesn't change from one check to the next, but I find myself reading the pay stub with increasing interest. About 40% of my earnings are swept away before the deposit goes plink into my checking account.
So, I scratch my head and wonder: Why am I working Monday and Tuesday of each week just to pay my income taxes? Funny, I thought I worked to support my family, not the Leviathan that the government has become.
The shenanigans of our newly confirmed Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, and Tom Daschle, the failed nominee for Secretary of Human Services, who dodged about $200,000 in taxes, make me feel like a chump.
Does anyone believe either man would have come clean and paid their taxes if President Obama hadn't nominated him for a Cabinet post?
But can you blame them for wanting to keep their money? That underscores a basic question: Why am I working 50 hours a week when I keep so little of what I make?
But taxes, like true love, never end. After the 40% bite out of my paycheck, I get clipped for property taxes as well (which have doubled in the 8 years I've lived in the wilds of Connecticut), sales tax and gasoline tax. That means 50% to 60% of my salary ends up in various government coffers instead of in my pocket. Or my retirement account. Or my children's education fund. Or my plain old rainy-day fund.
Relax, comrade - I'm not saying I should pay no taxes. I'm saying I should be taxed only to pay my share of essential government services. To get back to basics, it would be nice if someone in Congress read the Constitution and followed it.
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