Your one stop tax day pundit shop.
E.J. Dionne nails it:
You might imagine that if a terrorist attack killed an American public servant and threatened the lives of 200 people, it would have been big news for weeks and an enduring symbol of the risks taken by those who serve their country.
Yet when an American named Joseph Stack flew a plane into an office building in Austin in February, killing Vernon Hunter, a 68-year-old Vietnam veteran, the news reports were remarkably muted, and the story quickly disappeared.
Hunter worked for the Internal Revenue Service, which was housed in the Austin building, and according to Stack's suicide note, the IRS was his target.
On or about April 15, the Web and the commentary pages overflow with assaults on the IRS that cast its employees as jackbooted thugs, to use an old phrase, and our tax system as a form of oppression comparable to the exertions of the worst Russian czars and the most fiendish modern totalitarian dictators.
We should call this propaganda what it is: a sweeping falsehood that libels the work of committed federal employees such as Hunter.
Gail Collins thinks tax day needs better marketing:
Somehow the government tax collectors have let the country get locked into the idea that April 15 is a day of sorrow and misery, the culmination of the dreaded filing of the income tax form.
But, in fact, most people who file get money back. (Cue the horns and balloons.) [...]
Thanks to the tax credits in President Obama’s stimulus plan and other programs aimed at helping working families, couples with two kids making up to $50,000 were generally off the hook this year.
Naturally, anti-tax groups held rallies to thank the president for doing so much to reduce the burden on the half of the country least able to pay. Not.
Matt Miller channels Jack Bauer:
(Kiefer Sutherland voiceover: "The following takes place between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Events occur in real time.")
The hearing room of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations. Two men caucus in urgent tones behind the dais.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman: What you're proposing is most unusual, Mr. Bauer. I'll need to talk to counsel.
Agent Jack Bauer: With all due respect, senator, we don't have time for that. Either we gin up the kind of public outrage that gives real financial reform a chance -- or we let the lobbyists win and guarantee an even bigger financial meltdown a few years out. These bankers will blather their way though your hearings to the point where you'll be lucky to get even one decent sound bite on the news. Mitch McConnell says he'll do anything to kill reform. The president's pow-wow with congressional leaders Wednesdayy can't change this dynamic. You have to decide now.
Dante Ramos looks to Japan for a perspective on aging societies:
But that’s not the point. Japan’s experience shows that, while the aging of society looks mainly like a problem for the social-welfare system when it appears on the horizon, it reveals other dimensions when it arrives.
Objectively, it matters to society whether seniors feel useless and bored or needed and pleasantly occupied. People who say they have ikigai in their lives, studies show, have lower mortality rates than those who don’t.
Not all senior citizens need nursing care, and not all can take, or want to take, the equivalent of a permanent vacation in West Palm Beach. Over time, aging societies will have to recognize their older residents as an economic force and as a pool of talent — or as Ueda, the entrepreneur, sees it, as “a mountain of treasures.’’
The Washington Times prompts ones to ask, just how low can they go?
The late Rep. John Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, has achieved his highest undeserved honor. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus has decided to name the Navy's newest San Antonio Class amphibious transport-dock LPD 26 the USS John P. Murtha. This is a slap in the face to every service member who bridled when Murtha publicly accused Marines in Iraq of intentionally killing women and children in cold blood. [...]
It's doubtful that the ship naming will do much to honor Murtha. The brave Marines and sailors who serve aboard this vessel probably will refer to it only as LPD 26 or come up with a colorful nickname like "Porky Pig" or the "Fat Bastard" (the Marine favorite). Perhaps Murtha could still be useful in supplying the ship's slogan: "Cold Blooded Killers."
J. Matt Barber opines that protecting the rights of gays or transgenders is a part of "Barney and Barack's" anti-religious agenda. BarbinMD opines that Mr. Barber's column is a part of his homophobic hate agenda.
Suzanne Fields claims that:
The Nuclear Security Summit was a big deal for President Obama and the visiting heads of state, but for everyone else, it was only an opportunity to watch diplomats speeding down the avenues in big black rented limousines, trying to look important. They were in Washington to talk about ways to put nuclear weapons under lock and key, but it's hard to find anyone who thinks it was anything more than big talk.
And to prove it she talks to Newt Gingrich. Well then, case closed.