Paid Our Taxes Last Week

Dr Desert Flower and I proudly, and painfully, filed our taxes last week.  For some reason, our employers cannot figure out the right amount to withdraw from your paychecks (both of us claim no dependents, but it doesn't matter, we owe every year anyways), so it was a painful April financially.  I drove the check to the Tolleson US Post Office, and personally put it in the inside slot to make sure it was picked up - there were all of 4 cars in the parking lot, and the US Postal Service employees were dreading the MASSIVE RUSH that they were going to experience today, the last day to file and get post-marked.  Why did I not file electronically?  They feds want to charge a percentage of what you owe as a "convenience fee" - give me a break.  It was well worth the fossil fuel and drive to the post office to save that ridiculous fee.

What was really disappointing, is that I didn't get a receipt for what my taxes will pay for.  This much to Bush's war and the trillions in veterans' medical benefits it has caused.  This much to the Chinese and Japanese and German creditors who but US Treasury bonds.  This much to fund my parents medicare and social security payments, etc.  Even more disappointing is that I could not ELECT as to where my taxes would be applied.  Give NASA a whole dollar instead of the 42 cents they get from the average return.  Give WIC (Women, Infants, and Children - whom we used my Sr year in college) several dollars.  Give FEMA - who are all over North Carlina today after the rash of tornadoes yesterday - at least $20, since disasters are always expensive.  Don't give oil companies any refunds as part of my taxes, nor should Scalia's, Robert's, Thomas's, or Alito's salaries be paid out of my taxes.  I'd prefer that no military aid to any country be included in where my taxes are used - bombs and bullets are awesome recruiting tools to get more young male terrorists to want to kill Americans, and I already get remarkably hassled at my US airports since Bin Laden's already won the war on terror by having every single American illegally searched and health put at risk from radiation every time we try to get on a plane - congratulations jihadists, I didn't think you could do it, but I under-estimated how over-reactive and lemming-like Americans can be.

We can let all the red staters delegate ALL of their taxes to defense, and border control - that's fine.  Those things need funding too, and there's no shortage of nationalistic red staters to fund them. 

If only we could delegate where the taxes went....  but that would be a representative democracy, which we do not really have.