415

Sorry for the non-photo blog posting here but 

I just got to get this off my chest.

No... 415 is not a hotel room anymore than 911 is an emergency number. They both are in fact though very significant days of the year. While the events of 911 far exceed tax day, tax day comes every year and hopefully we will never experience a 911 event in our country again.

Here is a question. What do the following five items have in common?

• Cracker Jack
• Lincoln Highway (US-30)
• Crossword Puzzle
• Assembly Line
• 16th Amendment

They all happened in 1913 and they all remain to this day. Cracker Jack still has the toy in the box (ok they are really lame now), Lincoln Highway still runs from New York to San Francisco, there is a crossword puzzle in laterally every newspaper in the country, and all mass-production is done on an assembly line. So what is with the 16th amendment. Well it too remains in existence to the disapproval of the majority of americans. It was the year that "We the people" gave our government the authority and power to take what is ours and do with it what they, our elected officials want to.

February 3, 1913
16th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States

"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

Not many words, but words that would grow over time. Not in the actual amendment, but in what has become one of the most convoluted, misunderstood, complex pieces of documentation in the history of man. The U.S. Tax Code. In 2005 the Tax Foundation reported the size of the tax code had reached 9,097,000 words. That is 303,233 words per each of the words in the amendment. Hello? The bible only has like 775,000 words or so and that has works for thousands of years. Not just about money but all of life at that. That brings me to a sidebar thought. The bulk of the tax code demonstrates the ineptness of man to take care of itself while the much slimmer Bible demonstrates the wisdom of an omniscience God  to provide us with the tool and roadmap to life.


Here is the 1040 for from 1913. It looks as confusing for 1913 than as ours does now. When will the madness end? Click here for a closer look at the form.

Yes there was taxation well before 1913. It was used back in the 1860's to pay for the Civil War. But really now. It does not take a mental giant to see the ridiculousness of spending from Washington, the willy-nilly programs that are authorized to spend OUR hard earned income. They don't even have the cahones to try and raise taxes but rather quietly increase our deficit spending limits. If I tried that it would not be too long before I was in jail. What gives them the right?

I'm not sure I could come up with the a right answer but the road we are on is not the right one.

Again my apologies for the non-photo centric blog post. Take care... Doug