Life is so unfair, it hurts

Now I was raised to not worry about what other people are doing… think about that bridge analogy everyone has heard, but apply it to simple things like going to friends houses and playing outside and what not. I guess I am OK with it now, but I always have these strange feelings when I compare what I do to other people, except this time I have no problem making comparisions.

Tom Daschle & Timothy Geithner were gonna be two of Obama’s cabinet goons, except they didn’t pay taxes/had tax issues. The IRS didn’t go looking for them, and it wasn’t on anybody’s radar to the vetting process required to serve for the president. Geithner had his issues resolved and serving as the U.S. Secretary of Treasury, so his tax issues probably are a big deal. You may say, “Wesley, why all the fuss. Nobody is nominating for you for that kind of job any time soon. Quit whining!”

Well to you good sir/ma’am I would say, “shut up. “

I have yet to file my taxes, but I am pretty sure I owe the IRS. Pretty sure meaning I know I owe them, and I need to file taxes to figure out how much its will be after computing what changes occur due to 2008’s taxes. Before I file I will owe something like $250 dollars. After I file I may owe them even more.

I was taxed roughly 6.3% of my gross pay for the federal withholding tax and 1.8% of my gross pay for the state withholding tax. That may not mean anything to you, but its no where near how much I need to pay. However it is my, and undoubtedly many other unknowing peers misfortune, to have their taxes incorrectly deducted.

I file single (0) on my taxes and I had never encountered any problems until working at the University of Kentucky which got me back in 2005. I needed money for a refund and the university’s tax policy was basically eliminating my refund. I knowingly took some really bad advice from a less that credible source (obviously places the blame on me), that said it is federal aid money, don’t claim it as taxable income.

Bad idea.

Fast forward to ’09, they caught me, I gotta pay. Now I’m not mad that I have to pay, and I totally was OK with the possibility that it could come back to bite me in the ass… until Obama’s homies went thru the confirmation process of being a presidential appointee. These cats had a LOT more money owed in back taxes that they didn’t pay and nobody as looking for.

I thought to myself, they came after me for $250 in taxes (I didn’t even file for my tax refund back in ’02. I made more money than I did in ’05, so I definitely would have gotten a nice refund that year) and let these guys slide with big money on the line.

Realistically, I know thats not how it went, but I have severe problems with a system that has a fine toothed comb, small enough to get a 23-year-old, lifetime student and while not catching tax issues of a couple of guys that owe $146,000 in the case of Daschle and Geither who has had various tax issues for a few years. All I have to do is pick up a W-2 get on turbo tax and find out what I need to pay. Sure, it’s a easier for me to file taxes and keep track of wages, but those guys make the big bucks so that somebody else can do their taxes for them…

Oh well, on to slightly more positive news. Barack has got this stimulus package thing close to being done. The other day he had a news conference (video below) and took questions from the _ _ _ _ _ _ media. (You fill in the blanks with whatever six letter adjective you like.)

That news conference was roughly as long as this post will be…

Afterwards I caught some CNN. I absolutely love their pundits, because they honestly have great talking heads on the Democratic side and completely delusional brains on the Republican side. That’s not to say Republicans do not know what they are doing or do not have good ideas, but what you have is a clearly out of touch set of characters that clearly don’t get reality and think people are as dumb as they were four years ago.

One thing they talk about is how the national debt has been doubled and will increase even more under Obama’s stimulus plan. Well sometimes you have to spend (i.e. invest in your own economy creating jobs, renewable resources, and NOT supplying golden parachutes for the people who got us into this situation) to make things better.

Another funny point they make is that the democrats have controlled the congress for the last two years and that’s where the money gets spent. I have an elephant’s memory for certain things, and as a child/adolescent the same pundits charged that Reaganomics, and subsequently similar policies by George H.W. Bush, was the reason Clinton was able to pay down the national debt so much and get the economy going so well… So to them, the 12 years of one economic ideology brought about eight years of relative prosperity.

Not that I actually buy that train of thought, because its ludicrous, but I would maybe, slightly, possible try making sense. Our Democratic congress inherited a mess that was brought about by the last eight years of ridiculousness. Before the Republicans can go blaming Democrats for what they have done the last 2 years they should try looking up equitable estoppel, I mean they are smart people. (Barack and Paul Begala turned me on to this little piece of law.)

Last thing, I promise. CNN’s Alex Castellanos always gives the best analogies which make for good debate fodder, er ways to show that there are a lot of out of touch Republicans. Castellanos said that Obama’s proposed one time tax cuts prevent the government from doing what it should do in saving our figurative lives. He supposed that with the proposed plan, we cannot pass on the life preserver to someone else and will sink without having an available method of salvation. I agree we do need help, but the last time I checked, unless you are in a dangerous line of work or just plain effing stupid, you generally don’t need constant life preserving. We have to be more responsible and not live beyond our means, myself included. No way on earth should we have to have our lives saved over and over when the problem is staring us right in the face.

Salute

Do you really think Uncle Sam making it rain on us is gonna help?