'Matter of Laugh or Death,' a humor column

By Bill Dunn

Interesting observations on this thing we call life

(appearing each week in the Republican-American newspaper, Waterbury, CT)

COLLEGE STUDENT GETS LESSON ON TAXATION

Last month I did my daughter’s income tax return for her while she was away at college. For the first time in her life she actually owed money to the federal government. In past years, working summer jobs, she never made enough money. But last year she worked a couple of extra month before going back to school, and as a result of that additional income, she owed Uncle Sam exactly $249.

Normally college students send their parents notes asking for money. I might be the first parent in history to request that my college student send me money. Although it was only $249, when you’re in college, that’s the last thing you need. My daughter could have used that $249 for:

• A month’s worth of groceries (or a weekend’s worth of groceries if her friends decide it’s her turn to host a Saturday night party).
   
• Subway fare around Boston for the entire semester.
   
• A new inkjet printer and some replacement ink cartridges so she can turn in her classroom assignments on time.
   
• Half a biology text book.

But the fact of the matter is, she earned the income last year and therefore, Washington, D.C., needs every penny of her taxes now. Out of curiosity, I did some quick calculations. Since the federal government spends approximately $3 trillion dollars per year, that works out to $95,129 per second. So my daughter’s contribution of $249 is required to keep the government running for 3/1000th of a second. And just think if she did not pay her fair share. The entire federal bureaucracy would come to a screeching halt during that 3/1000th of a second. We can’t have that.

Here are some items the federal government most likely will spend her $249 on:

• A week’s worth of liquor for the bar in Ted Kennedy’s senate office (or 20 minutes worth of liquor if his friends decide it’s his turn to host a Tuesday afternoon party—either way, when the booze runs out, it will be the duty of a different college student, say, in Nebraska, to kick in another $249).
   
• More public speaking lessons for President Bush. (Based on the apparent frequency of his previous lessons, the $249 won’t run out for about 30 years.)
   
• Twelve new T.J. Maxx pantsuits for Hillary Clinton.
   
• One package of 10 plastic Bic pens for an office in the Pentagon (which breaks down to 89 cents for the pens and $248.11 for filling out the requisition forms to purchase the pens in strict accordance with the military’s bureaucratic procurement procedures).
   
• Another quart of embalming fluid to be administered to the corpse of Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who looks surprisingly non-lifelike since he passed away in 2003, and who slipped a little-noticed provision into a 1997 Farm Bill allowing all senior U.S. Senators from the state of West Virginia to remain in office, even after death, as long as voters are happy with the amount of pork the late senator continues to send back home.

To my surprise, after four years of being at college—the most bleeding-heart, we-love-big-government environment in the world—my daughter replied to my request for the money by writing this actual note to me: “What??? I will NOT pay it! I’m moving to a libertarian commune in New Hampshire RIGHT NOW, and I’d like to see the gov’t just TRY and get my $249! The income tax isn’t even Constitutionally legal!”

When I read that, I was so proud of my anti-tax radical little girl, I almost paid the taxes for her. Almost.

©2007