In Monday’s post I gave some anonymous children a hard time about their goofy worldviews and political opinions. They’re kids; I get it. They’re just parroting disturbing information peddled by so-called grownups who should know better. Speaking of which…

Consider this. An item in that same newspaper (The Washington Post) references a Gallup poll from earlier this year in which 61% of respondents say what they pay in income tax is “fair.” (I’m guessing that would be the bottom 61%, which pays hardly any income tax at all.) I believe the stat is intended to show that Americans really don’t pay very much in taxes. Well, the problem is that we really don’t pay taxes per se, the way we pay for gas or milk or cottage cheese. Income taxes, specifically (and a number of other things), are deducted from our paychecks (those of us who receive paychecks) before we even see said money. Trust me, if we all were given our gross salaries and they told to pony up to Uncle Sam at the end of the month, that figure would be a lot less that 61%.

Only 26% of people surveyed say they pay “too much” in taxes. But 60% say “corporations” pay too little. Never mind that “corporations” don’t really pay anything; people do, but I digress. To this one I’d say good job, media, for making the American public think that it’s greedy “corporations” eating out our substance.

Personally I thought the kids’ answers were much funnier.