Let’s hear it for the IRS

Bigger than General Motors:

After the 16th Amendment was ratified, an income tax was imposed starting in 1913 with rates ranging from 1 percent to 7 percent with the top rate applying only to incomes in excess of $500,000. . . . . The top rate exceeded 90 percent at its peak in the early 1950s. The first 1040 form — instructions and all — took up only four pages. Today there are some 4,000 pages of tax forms and instructions.

. . . . The IRS now has more enforcement personnel than the EPA, BATF, OSHA, FDA, and DEA combined. With its 115,000-man workforce, it has the power to search the property and financial documents of American citizens without a search warrant and to seize property from American citizens without a trial. It routinely does both.

. . . . the total cost to collect our federal taxes, including the effects on the economy as a whole adds up to an amazing 65 percent of all the tax dollars received annually.

. . . . IRS telephone information service has . . . given about one-third of all callers . . . the wrong answers to their questions. A 1987 General Accounting Office study found that 47 percent of a random sample of IRS correspondence — including demands for payments — contained errors. . . . a GAO audit of the IRS in 1993 found widespread evidence of financial malfeasance and gross negligence at the agency. The IRS could not account for 64 percent of its congressional appropriation!

They are the government and are here to help.

Tonight at Village Hall . . .

Oak Park Chronicles

. . . Spotlight on V-board in action. At issue: Transit Related Retail Overlay District zoning exemptions — special cases, also known as variances for deviations. Deviant merchants here, what they are permitted as to use of land or use, etc. of buildings or structures.

Are you with this so far?

Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) decides these exceptions, requiring neither incitement — variance seekers go direct to them — nor approval by the V-board. These people decide, based on information given (and verified, we presume), and that’s it. But the rules of game, the criteria, are set by the uber-board, the trustees.

In any case, cutting to the chase (if I may speak a little trite here), what the trustees accepted last meeting, May 20, about standards etc. for variances, as above) comes before them tonight for a “first reading.” They talked it over on May 20 and…

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Greeley in America Mag

The Jack Egan connection:

Former editor Thomas J. Reese, S.J., shared this story with us: “When Thurston Davis, S.J., was editor of America, he received a call in the early 1960s from Jack Egan, an influential Chicago priest, telling him about a young parish priest who just finished his doctorate in sociology. ‘You should encourage him to write,’ said Egan. Neither recognized that they were opening a floodgate of prose and fiction that would have such a profound impact on the church.”

I was a “4th-year father” at West Baden (Ind.) College, finishing my 14th year of Jesuit training, when Andrew Greeley, who died day before yesterday, wrote in one of a dozen or so articles offered by America Mag about the “Jesuit college administrator” who

observed: “For four hundred years we [Jesuits] have been in the apostolate of Christian education, and now we suddenly find that our seminarians are demanding that we justify this apostolate.”

And a confrere added: “Jesuit seminarians are the most radical people in the American church–bar none.” Neither of the two was opposed to the New Breed, just puzzled by them.

I go into this phenomenon in Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968, now available as Nook or I-Pad download.

For instance, this on page 119:

We younger Jesuits were said to think that each had the Holy Spirit to guide him individually, as opposed to church authority, its divinely licensed leadership, whose guidance should have been enough for us. We did think that way. We thought each had the Spirit, whom we had got at confirmation and had been relying on ever since. So did Martin Luther, and there you had a problem.

More later about Andrew Greeley.

Catholic hymn to normalize mood swings

Not for attribution

Let us hear it for the bad Catholic’s bingo hall, where we read today that maybe “the permissive will of God allows great evils to occur to plant the seeds of some greater good.”

For instance,

Be Not Afraid. This nasal, repetitive drone is too simplistic to accompany the Teletubbies, much less the Eucharist. While its message is apparently intended to be reassuring, NIMH clinical trials have shown that it reduces serotonin levels in the brains frontal cortex, mimicking the short-term effects of cocaine withdrawal or clinical depression. For this reason, we suggest its use is indicated on patients suffering from the manic phase of bipolar disorder, to normalize mood swings and render them compliant with hospital staff.

Lots more from this Baaaaad Catholic.

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The doctor who won’t take insurance

Michael Ciampi in Portland, Maine has his reasons:

[T]he decision to do away with insurance allows Ciampi to practice medicine the way he sees fit, he said. Insurance companies no longer dictate how much he charges. He can offer discounts to patients struggling with their medical bills. He can make house calls.

Im freed up to do what I think is right for the patients, Ciampi said. If Im providing them a service that they value, they can pay me, and we cut the insurance out as the middleman and cut out a lot of the expense.”

Could be the start of something.

Wizard politics

James Madison on those who never let a crisis go to waste:

“[Y]ou will understand the game behind the curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government.”

It’s also in this book here: http://books.google.hn/books?id=w9l2AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA7#v=onepage&q&f=false

As for “never let,” go here: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rahmemanue409199.html