It's April! You Know What That Means!!!

It's April!

Can you hear it?

Listen closely!

It's just a distant rumble of thunder, right now.

But, in another week or two, it will be loud and clear.

This is the time of year that "conservatives" celebrate their superior intellect over all of us "bee-brained refund monkeys"* who are happy to be getting money back from our tax withholdings from the past year.
 * Mallard Fillmore" by Bruce Tinsley, April 2011

Very soon, if you haven't been already, you will be told by multimillionaire radio talkers, professional op-ed columnists, obsessive writers of "letters to the editor" pages, your brother-in-law who ruins every family get together with his drunken (or worse, sober) right-wing pontification, and even my favorite "conservative deep thinker," comic strip duck, Mallard Fillmore, that you are merely getting back the money that you lent to the gu'mmint, interest free.

Well, whoop-de-do.

That's right. According to conservatives, you shouldn't be happy about getting a refund. You should be righteously pissed off. Those damn "revenooers" over estimated how much you would make last year (or your accountant did) and now they are sending you a check to make it right.

Man! That just chaps my ass!

But, seriously....

Presumably, these people have never underestimated their income, or claimed payroll exemptions beyond realistic expectations ("Married with 2 exemptions" filing as "Single with 10 exemptions") and wound up owing taxes on April 15th.

So, yeah. If I get money back at tax time, I'm pretty goddamned happy about it. And do you know what? They are happy about it, too!  So, Republicans, get off of your high elephants and stop being so fucking predictable.

See what I mean? Yeah, the duck thinks that you are an "idiot."

No one, and I mean NO ONE, enjoys paying taxes. But, if you are going to live in America and reap the benefits of living in the greatest country in the world, suck it up, pay the rent, and remember that your federal income taxes are currently the lowest that they have been in your lifetime. And, they are lower than the taxes of any other developed nation in the world.

(A digression.... Have you noticed that the lower your federal taxes go, the higher your state taxes get? Do you wonder why that is? Think about it, all you "states rights" advocates!)

So, take that refund! Buy yourself something nice. (Or, here's a crazy thought... donate it to a worthy charity.  HA! Just kidding!)