Tax man comes for half of us

In these days of Obama "change," it's difficult to put a finger on the WPFA -- Worst Problem Facing America.

Terrorism, I am sure, garners a few votes. So the same with the deficit.

Creeping socialism, moral deterioration and the collapse of uniformly good public education might also gain some support.

(For those who argue for global warming, please put the Bloody Mary down and go sit in your hybrid for 30 minutes. You have some thinking to do.)

For me, the worst problem might have been summed up in an Associated Press story that hit the wires last week:

"WASHINGTON -- Tax Day is a dreaded deadline for millions, but for nearly half of U.S. households it's simply somebody else's problem.

"About 47 percent will pay no federal income taxes at all for 2009."

This, folks, is socialism, American-style. If not corrected, it threatens to end America as we know it.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration -- along with the help of my own U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and the Democrat Party -- works to accelerate this brand of redistribution.

This Thursday, April 15, the tax man cometh, and he cometh for ... only half of us?

The AP story says almost half the country will pay nothing "for programs that benefit everyone, including national defense, public safety, infrastructure and education."

The top 10 percent of American earners will pay a whopping 73 percent of federal income taxes.

The bottom 40 percent, meanwhile, make a profit at tax time -- meaning they get more money in tax credits, deductions and exemptions than they would otherwise owe.

I asked a CPA friend of mine who has a thriving tax preparation business about all this.

I can't print his entire note because of his use of colorful language. He draws a dotted line between "most" low-income earners and their work ethic and then says this: "Obama is getting what he wants. A Marxist state. Shame on us for letting this happen."

And, you know, I think he's right about us "letting this happen."

We voted for congressional representatives ungrounded in the American principles of hard work, personal responsibility, the strength of the hive when all work together and, of course, the joys of capitalism that make it all so. For all our greatness as a country and as a people, we were wrong to embrace the idea that it's good to apply unfair tax laws that punish the productive to give the unproductive a free ride.

Those who have much should give much.

But America wasn't created to encourage the lazy to lift their feet while the rest of us pedal.

Seems to me all Americans ought to pay something -- even a small amount -- to enjoy the freedoms of America.

Is that asking too much?

Sherman Frederick (sfrederick@ reviewjournal.com) is publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and president of Stephens Media.