Happy Tax Day

Good afternoon and welcome to Tax Day. I've always felt that it should be a national holiday, a formal day of both celebration and mourning. By the way there is a lovely view from the 14th floor today. The sky and the water are both a lovely shade of blue. Navy Pier and the the water treatment plant are glorying in the late afternoon sunlight. The shadows of the high rises along Lake Shore Drive are taking a dip in the lake. It's still cold! It was 53 degrees when I left the Outpost in Back of the Yards. It was 48 degrees when I arrived in Streeterville. Will this never end? It looks quite lovely out there, but when you walk out the door you better have a coat.

Even yet, there are signs of Spring. I saw little bitty leaves on trees on my way back from the gym at 900 North today. Then I had to shove my hands into my pockets in my coat because they were cold.

Tax Day is a bit like that. You get bitter with the sweet. Old Beatles songs lamenting the "Tax Man" not withstanding, I have to admit that taxes not only are inevitable, but necessary. It just sucks when you realize that out of every $5000 you make, you only see $3500 of it. When I look at my W-2's I realize that I made a heck of a lot more money than I ever saw.

Mind you, this is America and people here are more anti-tax than anywhere else in the industrialized world. We also enjoy the crappiest government services of anywhere in the industrialized world. I'd pay a little more in taxes if healthcare were universal. I'd pay a little more if the safety net were a little more safe. I'd pay a little more if they'd just fix all of those potholes between here and work that are playing hell with the shock absorbers and suspension on my car.

I can sort of understand why really wealthy people don't want taxes. They can afford to wall themselves off from the rest of humanity and say "To hell with the rest of them." What I fail to understand is why the lower 98% of us are so hell-bent on not paying any. We are who will benefit from the taxes, and we pay them at a lower rate than those really rich guys.

The trouble is that everyone wants the government to step in when they need them, say for police protection once in a while, or fire department services once in a while, or for roads, military, and in light of the debacle of our current economy, regulation of the business community. They just don't want to pay for it. When Uncle Bill gets laid off, everyone wants the government to send him a check so he can pay his bills and not lose his house, but no one wants to pay for it. When everyone wants their kids to go to a decent school, they certainly need the government, but no one wants to pay for it.

I have to remind everyone that in a civilized society, it is a social contract. That is how we got here. Read some John Locke ladies and gentlemen. There is anarchy and there is total government control. We live somewhere in the in between, and exactly where in between is a matter of how we draw up our country's specific social contract. If you want the government to do stuff for you, you have to pay for it. If you want to take care of everything all by yourself, you better have your own private army and a shitload of money and resources. So suck it up and pay your damned taxes. It's necessary.

All of that being said, I don't like making out checks to the government any more than anyone else, and I was positively ecstatic when the accountant dude told me that our Quarterly Estimated Tax Payments this year more than covered the taxes and we didn't have to send a single solitary cent to the Feds or the State on April 15. I was even more ecstatic when he told us that we were in such a good state that we won't have to make any Estimated Tax Payments this year, because we overpaid and it was all covered. I suppose that means that we made a lot less money this past year than the year before, but on tax day I can overlook that. Now if they'd just fix all those damned potholes.