We hope that you remembered yesterday was the deadline to file your Federal Tax statement for 2010. Truthfully, we don't know of anyone - or anyone willing to admit it, anyway - who hasn't either completed their taxes or filed an extension by this point.
All the same, there are still some folks who forgot to pay their taxes last year - and millions more who are paying less than then they likely ever have.
We're not going to debate the facts regarding taxes; we have them all here. The richest of the rich continued to see their tax rates plummet last year. For the wealthiest 400 Americans, their tax rates have dropped nearly 10% in the last decade.
For the rest of America, the amount they pay in Federal Income Tax is at historic lows, lower than at any time since 1955. Even if we factor in state and local taxes along with federal tax dollars, Americans are still paying a lower percentage of per-capita income than at anytime since the 1960's.
With all of those things being true, our government, at nearly every level, still seems to be having money issues. In short, everyone wants to know: where did all the money go?
If you listen to the partisans on the political right, you're hear our recitation of facts blasted as "Class warfare!" Those dirty immigrants and the lazy unemployed are to blame, according to many of those on the right. If the poor would just suck it up and take jobs that pay less than unemployment (even though they'd need even MORE financial assistance down the road if they did so), the poor should just buck up and accept their status as members of the economic slave class.
On the left, there are those who blame corporations and the ultra rich for every monetary problem that America and other countries are facing. Those on the left may be operating from a larger set of actual facts - for example, that the rich have more tax shelters, and (as we pointed out already) the richest of the rich continue to watch their tax rates drop. Still, the corporate pigs and the greedy rich aren't even the biggest reason why America's collective bank account is short more than a few sheckels.
The biggest reason why we are all still struggling is that we are all STILL recovering from the second worst economic disaster in American history.
We think sometimes - many times, actually - that the collective memory of Americans is no longer than that of a chicken. This disaster we're all still climbing out of didn't happen overnight, and it won't be over like a sitcom or a cheesy horror flick, in a relatively short time.
We also weren't the only ones to suffer.
Our government is powered by the taxes we pay. If we don't earn anything, government doesn't fill it's coffers either. Our government isn't some strange magical creature that steals money from us and gives us nothing. If we have no money to give it, it can't afford to provide all the services we expect from it.
As we've quoted before, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." If we do not pay the price, our society is LESS civilized.
To us, when certain elements in our society raise the battle cry of "Class warfare!" where there is none, that's merely another example that our economy is anything but back to normal.
