I know this article is completely off topic in a sports blog, but I write here enough to deserve one pass:

What is up with all of the politicians and cabinet appointees getting grilled on their taxes?  Is every one of these people tax cheats who are trying to skirt around the tax systems they build for us little people?  Are the rich so g!@dam& greedy that they can't pay taxes on their maids, nannies, and multitudes of investments and incomes?  If Obama wants to really make a change in the system, try automatic audits of all millionaires and corporations.  Doesn't it make more sense to suck a million dollars in taxes out of each of a million multi-millionaires, rather than a hundred dollars from a hundred million working class citizens who can't afford it?  Audits would keep a lot more rich people honest in how they make their money, and possibly capture a few not-so-honest ones who get rich on bribes and special connections.

If little guys like me can automatically pay my taxes from each paycheck, why can't the rich get their crap taxed out of them too?  I'm not asking for the rich to take the full tax burden load, but at least share it and be honest about what you do and don't report each year.

Some people argue that the rich get richer because they know these tax tricks, loopholes, and way to avoid detection.  However, if I did the same tricks, saving a few extra hundred bucks isn't going to make me super rich.  So, my point is that the extra millions the rich make by cheating, isn't making them megarich.  Their legitimate profits do that for them.  So, why skirt the taxes?

I'm sure there are tons of tax laws and reasons why the rich pay more than we do by percentage, and I admit to not being a tax lawyer or scholar.  However, getting back to my original point, how is it that the people at the echelon of our government think they can skate on their taxes?  Also, how can they even accept an initial invite by the president to the cabinet, and not think their tax records won't come under intense scrutiny by Congress on the people?  Don't these people ever learn?  You can't have a skeleton in your closet and not expect it to come out some time further down the line in your growing career.  It's no wonder our country is so screwed up, when the people we elect to make good decisions for us, are screwing the citizens in the rear.  Sure the rich citizens will campaign, lobby, and support these crooks, because they're all on the payrolls.  It makes financial sense for them to put someone in office who is going to throw business their way and sweep their tax mishaps under the carpet.

Oh well, I'm just venting.  I think we'll continue to see the years of corporate and political corruption sowed over the past 30 years since Reagan be revealed in the coming years during this recession.  Corruption has always existed, but there is so much more money at play now in Washington and with corporate giants.  These dudes need to be reigned in and made to account.  I hope this recession lasts long enough to make some real legislation come about that makes some fundamental changes to taxes, elections, corporate, trading and congressional ethics laws.  Our laws have been warped and twisted for decades allowing large businesses and rich people to gain an inch here and there until it's revealed that they have a mile.

Further more, our government approved a $700B bailout plan for banks, and another much larger plan is in the works.  So, let's just say this next bailout is worth $800B.  That brings the total bailout dollars to $1.5 trillion dollars.  YES, TRILLION.  That's more money than the entire cost of WWII.  Do we really think these banks are going to operate in anyone's best interest other than their own and their stockholders?  That money was suppose to increase lending, but we haven't seen an increase in lending yet.  I guess those dollars are needed to clean up the messes those same banks created for themselves.  Screw bailing them out.  How about bailing out American workers??  What if we distributed $1.5 trillion to American citizens, all 300 millions of us.  That would be a $5000 payout per person.  That's roughly $15k-20k or more per household.  Of course Americans can't stand holding on to so much money, so a lot of that would be immediately pumped back into banks, paying down loans and debt, and more going into new purchases of large/expensive items.  The problem is that the large expensive items we buy are all foreign.  Give us our money, and we send it to another country.  How about some stricter tariffs and embargos?  The rest of the world like OPEC and China love playing hardball with us in trade negotiations, so lets play back hard now.  Let India starve to death by taking back our outsourced jobs.  Better them than us.  Have to look after our own.  Let's also cut off those illegals who keep sending their meager dollars back home to Mexico or investing in hispanic created products.

OK I'm through.  What do you think?