Our Catastrophic Tax System

Three months out of the year I prepare taxes for one of those nation-wide tax
services. Sometimes I run across some pretty funny stuff, such as the idiot who said, “So you’re going to fax my check to me?” My first impulse was to say, “We’ll do even better – we’ll fax you the cash.” But I didn’t.

Most of the people are okay, but for the most part they just aren’t too bright. They have an entitlement mentality, fostered by the government. It’s amazing how little most people make. As a result, they not only don’t pay any taxes, they get free money from the government – four thousand, five thousand, six thousand dollars. It’s completely free money transferred to them from taxpayers via the government.

They never see it that way. And some of them complain, “Last year I/we got $5000! So why is my/our refund this year only $4000?” Because you made more money this year, or you’re not claiming all three of your kids as dependents this year, or this, or this, or this, or that. I have to explain it to them because they’re morons.

It’s not terribly hard to manipulate them, because if I didn’t my temper would get really short. “Look at it this way,” I tell them. “You sat here for an hour, and you made $4000. That’s $4000 an hour. If you do that every hour you could work one day a year and take the other 364 days off.” Often it penetrates. I can tell when their beady little eyes light up.

That only people I’ve seen pay taxes are when they make $60,000 a year or more. One steelworker made over $100,000 in one year, by working a lot of overtime every week. The federal government withheld over $30,000 from him (for which he was paid no interest) and got back only $10,000. That $20,000 went to pay for the entitlement-minded mooches.

Every time the government gets involved in something, they screw it up. I am a certified CNA and am trained in physical therapy – which took a week. I no longer work in the field, because a lot of nursing homes are pits and the management should be in prison. Many CNAs start at about $10 an hour.

I did taxes for a woman who has a degree in Occupational Therapy, which is similar to physical therapy. Every nursing home by law has to have a little room for occupational therapy, which essentially means entertaining the people, putting together puzzles and other things that takes no training at all. I call it Arts & Crafts. But only this woman can do those things because she has a degree.

Last year she made $144,000, doing something that can be learned in one week. But the law requires that degree. And the money paid to nursing homes – and therefore her – comes from the government. It’s not like any nursing home produces anything and adds to the economy. All of them are essentially parasites on the taxpayers – and most of them are warehouses for their residents. I despise most of them and think most of them should be bulldozed.

CNA -- $10 an hour. Occupational therapist doing the same work – over $100,000 a year. The difference? The government interfering in the market and requiring degrees that tremendously reduce the supply.

The occupational therapist who made over $100,000 a year was married to a truck driver who made $15,000 last year, So he was going to school to try to make more money. I’m sure she wanted to work less hours, since she was driving over 60,000 miles a year traveling all over the state from nursing home to nursing home. They told me they went through one used car a year.

I kept my mouth shut and didn’t tell him he would never make the kind of money did, because Affirmative Action means “white men need not apply.” I didn’t bother to ask what he was studying, but it didn’t matter. Even if he got the same degree as her he would never make the same money as her. They’ll find out.

Our tax system is a catastrophe. People who work their butts off to make a decent living –which these days means 50 hours a week – are having their lifeblood sucked out to support mooches who think they deserve to get “government” money. Sooner or later it’s all going to collapse. And the sooner the better.