SOMEHOW the government tax collectors have let the country get locked into the idea that April 15 is a day of sorrow and misery, the culmination of the dreaded filing of the income tax form.
But, in fact, most people who file get money back (Cue the horns and balloons.)
And according to one much, much-quoted study by the Tax Policy Center, 47 percent of American households didn't have to pay one cent of income tax for 2009. (Marching bands, confetti.)
Thanks to the tax credits in President Obama's stimulus plan and other programs aimed at helping working families, couples with two kids making up to $50,000 were generally off the hook this year.
(Gail Collins, "Celebrating the Joys of April 15," New York Times, April 15, 2010).
The other side of the liberal balance sheet, of course, is "something," as in "something for nothing."
Ms. Collins is giddy over the all-but-fully-realized prospect of creating enough grateful takers to outvote the troublesome makers, inbuing the welfare state with eternal life.
Her unseriousness is colossal, even by the standards of her foolish newspaper. It almost measures up to the unseriousness of the Houston Chronicle editorial board.
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