The evil day has come and gone. We have meekly paid taxes that will go to programs we may abhor. Is tax day greeted with nationwide protests? No, most people suffer in silence, even though, as John Stossel points out, the burden does nothing but grow:


“In 1904, government, federal and state, cost every citizen $20 per year, according to a 1999 Tax Foundation study. Don’t blame inflation –that only brought it to $340. For more than 150 years after we declared independence, we spent less than $1,000 each on government. Yet by 1999, government cost every man, woman and child an average of more than $10,000 per year — more than housing and health care combined. The price went down a little after that, but then it started climbing again.


“You probably don’t know how much you pay, because the government is sneaky about how it taxes you. Paying withholding taxes each pay period dulls the pain of the income tax — it’s money you earned, but it’s never in your hands — and a hundred other taxes are hidden.”


Why don’t would-be tax-cutters in Washington have more success in trimming our expenses? “Even a politician who believes in limited government has a tough time resisting a constant onslaught of ‘needy’ people saying, ‘This program is crucial!,'” writes Stossel. We expect government to do things that were not dreamed of by the Founding Fathers.