April 26th is a very special day, 116 days into the year 2006. It’s especially important if you believe in a strong work ethic …if you believe that the ability to earn income is not a right that is given to us by the government, but is an “unalienable right” given to us by our Creator for the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness.
This significant day occurs every year but doesn’t get much publicity. It is three days later in 2006 than it was in 2005, but it would be better for each of us individually if the day fell earlier in the year. The sad thing is that there are hundreds of people trying to make this day occur later and later every year. These people fit all kinds of classifications, do-gooders, representatives, senators, special interest groups, and the AEA. There are probably many more people working to make the day occur later, than there are those that are working to make it earlier.
What is this day? It is National Tax Freedom Day. It’s the day of the year when the average employed American taxpayer has worked enough (since Jan 1) to pay federal and state income taxes (77 days to pay federal income taxes and 39 days to pay state and local income taxes). Following this day, one begins working for himself and his family instead of Uncle Sam and Uncle AL. There are, of course, many other taxes as well.
Surprisingly, this mythical average
taxpayer works only about 62 days a year for housing and only 30 days a year
for food. Both of these are amazing statistics that commend the efficiency of
our housing and food systems in this country. I know a family in a foreign
country where much of every day is spent shopping for the food to prepare meals
for just that particular day. Supermarkets, if they exist at all, are very
often devoid of even the basic necessities that we just take for granted here
in the
The identification of this day should make more of us communicate to our government that enough is enough. Spending has to be brought under control and those programs that are predicted to be in trouble in the future must be identified and steps taken to curtail their over-runs. Health care costs and federal entitlements like Social Security head the list for future excessive cost if steps are not taken now to address them fiscally. We cannot afford to let Congress continue to take the proverbial position of the ostrich with its head in the sand concerning financial responsibility.
As this column emphasized last
week, tax cuts are not the problem. It is overspending by Congress. According
to the National Taxpayers Union, “Federal
revenues are projected to grow about 29 percent from 2004 through 2007,”
so continuing the tax cuts is a very necessary matter. Even more important is
for Congress to be prevented from spending the majority of that 29 percent
growth. One thing for sure, Congress will spend it if they don’t get huge
pressures not to.
If
nothing else occurred in 2005, citizens saw that big government is not always
the best venue for the solution to problems. So much inertia exists in
government programs and bureaucracies that it is very difficult to overcome,
perhaps impossible.
People
who want to pour more money into government spending are certainly free to do
so. There is nothing to prevent them from doing that. Some think that
government holds the solution to poverty, for example. Others prefer to support
non-government organizations that better address such problems.
Dr. Malcolm
Cutchins is an emeritus professor of engineering of
.