Steal My Ideas, Please

It’s ridiculous how many hidden taxes we pay. Phone taxes, gas taxes, hotel and airplane surcharges, parking meters, bridge and turnpike tolls, car registration and driver’s license fees, unemployment and Medicare deductions, even taxi taxes. Want to really spark a tax rebellion? Create a kind of spending-tracker credit card that totals all our taxes. Better yet, make it part of a flexible spending account so that taxes are paid with pretax income, not the chump left after paying all those state and federal taxes. Seriously, the ranks of the super rich keep growing rapidly, helped by lowered brackets, lowered capital gains taxes, the ceiling on social security contributions, 401(k)s, benefits that never get taxed (like company underwritten benefits), and no doubt others that slip my mind. Then the next time Congress passes pork-laden legislation, maybe citizens will react and really remember. Hey, how about a new campaign: No perks! No pork!