Dear IRS

I hardly ever buy a T-shirt with text, but this is tax time and I thought this one for the Internal Revenue Service was cute: "Dear IRS: I would like to cancel my subscription. Please remove my name from your mailing."

On or before the first Monday in February, the President of the United States is required to submit to the Congress a budget proposal for the following fiscal year, beginning in October. The Congress reviews it and makes changes, setting its own priorities. In fiscal year 2006 (Oct. 1, 2005 - Sept. 30, 2006) here's what they did with $2.655 trillion (income of $2.407 trillion, deficit of $.248 trillion).

1. Social security, Medicare and other retirement took 36% of the income.

2. Social programs like Medicaid, food stamps, needy families, health research, public health, unemployment compensation, assisted housing and social services got 13%.

3. Physical, human and community development--agriculture, national resources, environment, education, commerce, energy, community development, science, etc. got 12%.

4. National defense, veterans and foreign affairs takes about 23%, most of that for the war on terrorism, or 19% of the government's income, and the rest for veterans, economic assistance to foreign countries, and embassies abroad.

5. Interest on the debt eats up about 8%.

6. Law enforcement and general government gets 2%.

The above percentages are from p. 33 of the 1040EZ booklet, which despite 35 pages, contains no forms. The government figures you will use 26.4 hours ($207 average) to do your taxes--most of that in preparation and gathering information. (p. 32)

Most of the taxes in the United States are paid by the wealthiest income earners--the people in the top quintile. Many people at the bottom receive from the government, they don't pay the government--except gasoline taxes, cigarette and other sin taxes, but those are called "miscellaneous," not income taxes. (This is not true at the local and state levels because even the poor pay real estate taxes, sales taxes, etc.--often far beyond a reasonable percentage of their income). Ohio doesn't charge sales tax on food, but many states do. Now, I've never been in the top group, but for awhile in the 80s and 90s, when we were "DINKS" double income no kids, we did make it to the 4th. Now, being retirees, we're back in the bottom quintile like when we were first married. Income, however, does not mean assets, so therefore, many retirees are very well off because we're in good health, saved when we were younger, sheltered some of our income when we worked, inherited from our parents, or just had good luck.

At my age, true wealth is figured in how healthy you are, your relationship with God, and what is the status and proximity of your social and family network.