Deadline

It has been truly said the only certainties in this life are death and taxes. The big red date seems to project itself form the plane calendar surface and others have seen it as an on-off switch reminding us that we must file and pay up or run into a peck of problems.

April 15 is our universal reminder of these citizens' most important deadline we will ever have to meet. Fearsome indeed are the government envelopes we may or may not receive after filing, especially those that mention the dreaded word "audit!"

Long ago, when this observer was a youngster, we didn't have to worry, because income taxes were levied on the rich and their stock market activities and manipulations. All this had required a constitutional amendment to become effective as recently as 1913.

Before then, we got our money from excise taxes and the tariff. Republicans favored protective duties levied on imports, while Democrats traditionally preferred free trade and taxing the rich. Another related concern has been the propensity of the Congress to borrow the money it authorizes us to spend and thus run up dangerous shortfalls when it comes to budgetary mischief or careful permission to go into deeper debt.

Currently, we are in a deep recession which will require massive expenditures by the federal government so we can prime our failing money pump. These measures ought to distribute equitably over the whole spectrum of the people. But there is always a tussle between the two branches of our government which are so busy helping to get us out of the recent mess.

Banks and business failures have required measures so unusual that there will be much strife before it is all settled. We write this with apologies to our great-grandchildren, who will get the bill to pay for all the greed and folly we have permitted to bring us close to ruin. But we will survive and prevail in the long run. Get used to the new strange word, Trillion...