Once upon a time there was a congressman, who upon passage of the first abortive attempt at passing an income tax, chortled, “The passage of this bill will mark the dawn of a brighter day, with more of sunshine, more of the songs of birds, more of that sweetest music, the laughter of children well fed, well clothed, well housed.” Sort of sounds like Gates Sr. subterfuge, but it’s not. The year was 1894; the bill was declared unconstitutional. Only after passage of the 16th amendment in 1913, did a federal income tax come into being. But people were assured the pain would be minimal; the original tax form was a maximum of three pages and the instructions were one page in length! Mr. Gates, how does that jibe with the multi-billion dollar economic bleed-off that is today’s IRS? Where will the money come from in Washington State to support the Hydra that is sure to be birthed? Furthermore, this original tax was directed at high wage earners and ranged from 1-7 percent max. With the exemptions and standard deduction, virtually no average family paid any tax (all this sound familiar)? I wish I could report that everyone lived happily ever after, but apparently we haven’t yet reached the level of taxation where we have “more sunshine, singing birds, etc.”

Albert Chukitus, Kirkland