Tax Day 2009

Today has been a more unusual tax day for us than most. For one, we got our tax return in the mail yesterday from our CPA. It was 65 pages long. That was just the federal return. Yes. SIXTY-FIVE pages long. Quite a thunk when you drop it on the kitchen counter. And Nathan and I are obviously not multi-millionaires with investments or employees on a payroll. We spent several minutes writing checks (for city, county, and state taxes) and addressing envelopes this afternoon. Prepared to face a zoo at the PO, Nathan was pleasantly surprised to find the lobby empty!

Over the weekend we got a visual picture of the vast amounts of money our government is spending. To have an idea of how large one trillion dollars is. Imagine stacking $1000 bills on top of each other. One million dollars in one thousand dollar bills is 4.33 inches thick. One trillion dollars is over 63 MILES tall. In shock? Check out my math at the bottom of the post if you don't believe me. I heard today that the average child born this year will be born with a tax burden of $36,000-$46,000 just to pay their share of what our government is spending today. If you are 20 years old, over your lifetime you will pay $114,000 over your lifetime just to cover the interest on this budget's deficit. It's sickening.

So, in light of the frustration and anger we are feeling towards the reckless spending of our tax dollars on entitlements and bailouts, we skipped lunch to attend the little tea party at our county seat of Nicholasville. It was encouraging to see folks from church, neighbors, business owners, groundskeepers, retirees, school kids, young and old alike gathered out of love of our country and concern for our future.

Having worked for a while on Capitol Hill, I saw my share of protests and demonstrations. I have to say that a lot of those folks in DC seemed a bit out there, definitely out of the mainstream. Today's group was not like that. In fact, unlike some of the tea parties I've seen on TV, it was a pretty quiet group, but firm in its resolve.

Did you attend a tea-party? What are your thoughts about this? What was your favorite sign? (A of mine are, "Party like it's 1773", "Congress, you ran out of our money a long time ago", "I feel like a ship off the coast of Somalia", etc) Leave a comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Our local talk radio host, and fellow Asbury grad, Leland Conway

Correct me if I'm wrong...

$1 million dollars in $1K bills is 4.33 inches tall
$10 million dollars in $1K bills is 40.33 inches tall
$100 million dollars in $1K bills is 400.33 inches tall (or 33.36 feet tall)
$1,000 million (or 1 billion) dollars in $1K bills is 4,000.33 inches tall (or 333.36 feet tall)
$10,000 million (or 10 billion) dollars in $1K bills is 40,000.33 inches tall (or 3333.36 feet tall)
$100,000 million (or 100 billion) dollars in $1K bills is 400,000.33 inches tall (or 33,333.36 feet tall)
$1,000,000 million (or 1 trillion) dollars in $1K bills is 4,000,000.33 inches tall (or 333,333.36 feet, or 63.13 miles tall)