There’s really no need for a question mark in this case, since TIME‘s Bill Saporito displays a complete lack of understanding of the Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day:
I tend to look at Tax Freedom Day from a different perspective. To me, it’s Tax Freebie Day. We live in a five-star resort of a country, and people whine about having to pay for the umbrella drinks. But think about value for money. The real deal with personal taxes in Club USA is that you buy one day and get three at no extra charge. We even have a National Weather Service so we know how to dress in the morning. If this got any better, they’d serve me orange juice too.
Every day of the year I live in the richest country in the history of the world, one that offers a free basic education and a billion cable channels. It has baseball. We are protected by a kick-ass military. And after April 17, it’s all free? Go ahead, raise my taxes.
Set aside for a moment any questions you might have about the link between taxes and either cable TV options or baseball. If you treat Tax Freedom Day as meaning that “it’s all free” after April 17, that means you’ve been able to survive the first three-and-a-half months of the year with no food, no new clothing, no housing (unless you owned your home free and clear when 2012 started), and no other goods and services. The Tax Foundation proclaims April 17 as the day we are free from taxes this year — only if we consider that every dollar earned from January 1 until that date has been turned over to government.
Force Mr. Saporito to forgo life’s basic necessities for more than 100 days, and he might be a little less sanguine about the national tax burden.