Tax Day and More

Today I filed my taxes, instead of doing my usual procrastination and waiting until the last day like I tend to do every year. This year, things are a bit different with what you can claim on your federal form due to the stimulus program enacted by President Obama. There's this $400 "Making Work Pay" credit that you can claim if you have made more than $6000 a year or some such thing but using the worksheet to claim it is as confusing as anything I have ever had to deal with. At first I thought that I wasn't owed anything and I got pretty angry about it, thinking that if the government is supposed to help us working stiffs, then I should be owed something since I worked full time this past year. I tried to call the IRS but all I got was some automated menu that really didn't help much. It made it sound as if you had to make at between $75,000 and $150,000 to qualify for this "Making Work Pay" credit, which I will never make, and folks in that salary range don't need any extra money. I also wondered why on earth it would seem that I owed nearly $450 dollars in taxes when I've never owed more than $170 at the most. After much hair pulling and teeth gnashing, I figured out that I owed the least amount of money I have ever owed to the government, and I am ready to write a letter of effusive thanks to our President for lowering taxes for us working folks who don't make a lot of money.

It's such a thrill to know that the policies that have been put into place by our President are working to help people and stimulate our economy at the same time. In fact, I read this morning that infrastructure work this year in Ohio will add over 110,000 jobs, which is great. Many roads, bridges, culverts and other parts of our infrastructure are in a sad state and in need of either outright replacement or major repair. The idea of investing in that will do a lot to stimulate jobs, not only for those who are doing the repair and/or replacement work, but suppliers as well. So I don't want to hear people whining about our President doing nothing to help people. I am sick unto death of all the vitriolic attacks on him and all of the hate speech being spewed on blogs, radio and elsewhere. I have to wonder just how much of that is subtle racism at work. I've never heard such angry, nasty and hateful stuff being written and spoken about a sitting President. I mean, sure, we regularly pilloried Bush, but he deserved it. He was an incompetent idiot and deserved everything he got. But President Obama is an intelligent and thoughtful President who seems to have the best interests of ordinary people in mind. It's unfortunate that he's been met with obstructionist Republicans who seem united in wanting to bring him down and make him a failed President. They are not serving ordinary people. Rather, they are looking after their own political hides and trying to destroy a man who won by a landslide and is trying to do the right thing, even if it's not the popular thing. Sure, maybe President Obama isn't the progressive we all hoped he'd be, but he's been met with a lot of stiff opposition by Republicans who refuse to work with him to enact policies and some stiff-hided conservative Democrats who are, to my mind, "DINOs", Democrats In Name Only, like Joe Lieberman and Bart Stupak.

So it's up to we progressives to seek out candidates who will run and get them elected to Congressional seats. That, though, is an uphill battle that is going to take time, energy, money and a lot of shoe leather to win. I suspect it's going to be a bit of an ugly midterm election this November and it remains to be seen how badly Democrats will fare in Congressional elections what with the Tea Partiers out there trying to stir up all kinds of hate and vitriol against Obama. I just hope they don't somehow manage to make Sarah Palin their Presidential candidate for the Republican nomination in the next Presidential election. I fail to understand why she's so popular. She's an even bigger idiot than Bush. Unfortunately, there are a lot of idiots out there who'd vote for her in a New York minute. But in the meantime, we'll see how things go this year before worrying about next year and the Presidential election race for 2012.