Shangri-La

47% of all U.S. households pay no income taxes.

In my cousin's South Sacramento enclave, 100% of these households pay no income taxes. To them it's Shangri-La, an earthly paradise where no one needs to work, no one pays any taxes, and everyone wakes at 11 and is drunk and loaded by 5.

Technically, I'm wrong. They do pay taxes -- taxes on cigarettes, malt liquor, cheap Tamiroff vodka (which tastes like gasoline)...and gasoline. By paying these taxes, they are all enjoying the benefits of two foreign wars for energy, infrastructure developments like gold-plated freeways, and a top-notch education system. We are paying 48,000 people a federal wage to ensure that we count them in the census so that they are eligible for all the federal, state, and local subsidized programs to which they are so entitled.

They most certainly deserve it. They are the "impoverished" and the "disadvantaged." I most certainly feel I should be paying more, more in taxes to help them recover from their chronic Vicodin binges, alcoholic domestic rampages, double murder suicides, and fungal infections. They deserve our help and damn it, they're gonna get it, too -- for all the contributions to society that they've performed.

America, the greatest nation in the history of human existence, is only great because of how we treat our "needy and disadvantaged." I only wish I could do more to help them...I feel so unworthy...