...But do you remember a slew of stories like this?
Iraqi authorities have obtained confessions from captured insurgents who claim al Qaeda is planning suicide attacks in the United States and Europe during the Christmas season, two senior officials said Wednesday.
As I drove toward Greenville for Christmas my route took me along lightly traveled two-lane roads in some sparsely populated areas of the state.
I crested a hill and noticed a car sitting barely off the road about half a mile forward and on the left. An old woman (so I adjudged from her white hair) was standing beside her car looking expectantly up and down the road.
Thinking this was my chance to do a good deed on this chilly eve of Christmas, I stopped the car and rolled down the window.
"Ma'am," I asked, "are you okay?"
She looked at me as if puzzled why I would inquire, then said to me, "I'm fine, thank you. I'm simply trying to cross the road to reach my mailbox."
She wished me a merry Christmas as my white steed morphed back into my Toyota and I drove away laughing at myself.
The summer I turned 18 and before I began college Dad had a talk with me about my financial responsibilities. At eighteen, he said, you are an adult. You have to pay your way: You will pay your own car insurance and gas. In fact you will cover all your expenses.
The first week at Furman I successfully auditioned for the Furman University Concert Choir. Congratulations, Tim - now go buy a Tuxedo. That was a huge outlay that wiped me out financially. But it was important to me and I wanted to be in the choir. That came with costs.
When I ponder the factoid in the chart that one-third of American income earners paid NO income tax at all in 2007 (remember, that was a boom year for the economy)...I'm struck with the feeling that Dad would not approve.
Setting aside any debate over the wisdom of the 16th Amendment and accepting the federal income tax as a given, I believe the legacy Dad left me would hold that if you are going to play you gotta pay. That to appreciate the worth of something you must have some skin in the game in terms of what that something costs.
Heresy, some will shout, I know, but I offer a modest proposal: Since 50% of earners pay only 3% of the taxes, allow people whose income is in percentiles 1-50 this choice: Pay no income tax or cast no vote.
They get to pick but can't do both. Because if you vote without paying taxes you are at the table playing with someone else's money.
You want to elect folks whose notion is to "spread it around" - well, you gotta help bear the expense.
What do you think?
