Of course, shortly after the war it was abandoned in favor of the far more sensible "Hey wait, we're gonna need money to pay for wars and stuff. Okay, fine, TAXES," policy that we've had in place ever since...

Actually, this was done away with during the Bush administration, who came up with the "Hey, let's cut taxes during wartime, and just borrow money from China to make up the difference."

I thought the Bush administration's tax policy was "Rich people always cheat on their taxes anyway - there'll be a lot less math involved if we just don't tax them in the first place. Math is hard, you know!"

No, that was Right Wing Nutjob Talking Barbara.

During the first meeting of the Continental Congress, if you want to get technical.

Snerk.

Although that was less about paying taxes at all than it was about not paying taxes to basically a foreign power who didn't give anything back.

Although that was less about paying taxes at all than it was about not paying taxes to basically a foreign power who didn't give anything back.

There was a certain amount of "When I get my OWN COUNTRY I'm not going to have ANY TAXES!" going on as well, but nearly everyone realized pretty quickly how poorly that would work out in practice.

[And yes, in my head the founding fathers talk like fifteen year olds who swear that once they move out they're never going to do the dishes ever again.]

[And yes, in my head the founding fathers talk like fifteen year olds who swear that once they move out they're never going to do the dishes ever again.]

Totes! My favorite bit is when they almost passed a law saying we needed to switch to another language, because the hated British, you know, spoke English. Until someone said, "Hey wait - why should we change our language? The British should change theirs!" or something like that.

[And yes, in my head the founding fathers talk like fifteen year olds who swear that once they move out they're never going to do the dishes ever again.]

MINE TOO!!!

Oh, and guess who's sitting here with a full collection of BSG DVDs?

Oh, and guess who's sitting here with a full collection of BSG DVDs?

Well, me. It's not like I sent you both my sets.

Dang Priority Mail is fast. Love it when the system works!

If we cut ALL entitlements tomorrow, it would have the effect of a hamster fart in a hurricane on the national debt. They are an almost insignificant portion of the US budget.

Mandatory spending, i.e., spending that is not done through appropriations, accounts for more than half of the federal budget.

That includes social security (20%); Medicare, Medicaid and children’s insurance (21%); and "safety net" programs such as tax credits, SSI, unemployment and food stamps (17%). The programs covered under the term "welfare" amount to around 2% of the budget, in case anyone every yells "cut welfare" at you as a reasonable means to cut the budget. Defense is about 20%, which may or may not include services to veterans, and servicing the debt is 6%.