Is there any such thing (or the possibility of such a thing) that would accomplish the same goal that interlock seeks, incompetently, to accomplish? And if there is, or if there could be, would that be all right with Radley or any of the others here? If not, why not?

I only have a problem with your claim of 90% sober. Even, with the lowest numbers you sated, rounding off for convenience, 12,000/48,000 is 25% or conversely 75% sober drivers. The last CDC report I looked at (2006?), looking for drugged driving statistics said 32% of auto fatalities were legally drunk. Of those, 18% had drugs in their system as well. But, no statistics were available about fatalities involving drugs alone. ????? (0.00%?)

Could it be that they have the wrong drug prohibited? Just kidding. Prohibition a dumb thing to try. It has never worked, so far! And MADD is a neo-prohibitionist group, even, by their own acknowledgment, now!

But, I admit interlocks are beatable, so useless and stupid. What could help to stop these irresponsible jerks (drunks) from killing innocents? I do feel killing someone while driving drunk is a violent act. And, as such, should require more prison time than selling cannabis! But, I believe that cannabis sentence is cruel an unusual if it is even one day!

This is one of those times where I fucking HATE being right. : (

How about this:

1. we lower the downward limit for income tax
2. we also tax capital gains as income

that should make everyone happy, since they’ll be taxed fairly and all

Greta point about Albom. that was so thoroughly insulting and frustrating to see such a normally smart guy opine with absolutely no facts. He basically said that these deaths will continue to happen until we start to “do something” as a society to punish drunk drivers. He then said that Japan has something like a year of jail after your first offense as though that is a GOOD solution.

Just ridiculous to think that a) we don’t do enough in this country to punish and stop drunk driving and that b) the asshole who killed the pitcher and his friends would have cared about the law.

Radley, I am begging you to email Albom with some facts and ask him exactly what his point was or what solution he thinks would make sense. Like a typical dumb sports-writer venturing out into politics, he has no actual solution or plan, just some emotional bluster and a request to “do something.”

1) Government being government, I don’t see it backing off on the invasion of privacy. Instead State Sponsored Snoops will spy on you to make sure that all the sales tax has been paid and that nobody is getting anything untaxed and under the table.

2) Sales tax too easily becomes Value Added Tax.

3) All of my life, every time somebody enumerates various wasteful Government programs, older and wiser heads chuckle indulgently and explain that all those “wastes” are only a few hundred thousand each, and Congress can’t be bothered with such petty drains. A few hundred thousand a year would make ME very happy indeed, and from where I stand, until the swine in Congress are ready to do the metaphorical equivalent of looking in the sofa cushions for loose change, it won’t matter a damn what kind of tax we pay. It will be too much, and it will be wasted.

Federal tax regulations are complex because (a) this country has many layers of government with taxing authority, (b) there are a lot of very complex ways to make money, (c) there are a lot of even more complex ways to minimize your “profit” for tax purposes while maximizing it for economic purposes, and (d) our fellow citizens keep electing people who promise a small group of us a special tax break due to our special circumstances, thereby riddling the code with weird exceptions.

Lots of politicians have promised re-writes to the tax code. But the lobby for a clean tax code always gets clobbered by the multiple lobbies for various complexities in the code.

I’d still say that for most people tax filing isn’t all that complicated. If you have only W-2 and interest income and don’t have any deductions you can do the EZ in less than a half hour. Before I had any real side business income, I used to pop out the 1040 long form in under an hour.

Now things are bit more complex for me, but my life is pretty complicated. It’s not surprising that my taxes are complicated. I still do them myself though.

There is no doubt that the neo-MADD’s mission is prohibition.
Ater leaving MADD in the 80s Candy Lightner (founder of MADD) was quoted in the Washington Times:
“[MADD] has become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned … I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving.”

The beast wouln’t die. It adapted and got stronger.

Actually, I would say writing that sentence is a pretty good start…

We got our returns bundled in a tidy spiral bound booklet about 1/2 an inch thick.

Jeezus, there’s gotta be a better way.

Let’s think about this. A group of very smart people, with a tremendous amount of cognitive skill, went to college to apply their talents towards deciphering regulations. Their talents could go towards scientific research, medical expertise, or any other service or industry that adds economic value. But instead, we waste those talents so we can have people proficient in the collection of wealth and economic output. Paying a CPA is just another form of transferring wealth to people who quiet frankly doesn’t deserve it. It’s welfare by creating unnecessary jobs.

So…anyway…I feel better now that I’ve preached to the choir.

I think you need to take your taxes into a professional. I make in the 40′s right now, and they take about 20% total out of my check (including federal, social security, medicare and state taxes), and I usually get back a couple hundred bucks from the federal government. I don’t know what you’re counting in that 18 – 22% range, but if you’re withholding federal income taxes throughout the year, I can’t imagine you’d still have to pay a couple grand at the end of the year. Are you taking your standard deduction and your personal exemption? That’ll be about $9k deducted from your gross income.

Either way, I totally agree with his point that having a diminishing fraction of the citizenry pay most of the bills while a large chunk pays for very little of the bills creates a system with little incentive for people to think about the costs of programs. If a big chunk of voters thinks the government is essentially free, basic economics guarantees that we will get more government. And, that’s just the direct costs; larger government will always carry with it the ancillary costs of authoritarianism.

I’ve often said that the terms in the whole “the ‘rich’ must pay their ‘fair share’” argument are typically too ill-defined to be serve as anything but fodder for class envy. And, I have issues with so-called progressive income taxes in the first place, but, setting that aside, there should be no zero-tax-rate tier. I don’t know what numbers work out, but no income earner, no matter how low, should pay 0% income tax. Of course, I’m not holding my breath for that…

I still say that Election Day should be the day after Tax Day. I actually think that is doable, politically. It’s just plain stupid to divorce the costs of government from people’s voting decisions.

I still don’t get it.