April 15^th is the day in the United States when most individual income taxes are due.  I mailed mine last Friday, as I am concerned about internet security.  (According to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) identified more than 1.8 million tax-related identity thefts during 2012, more than four times the number from just two years ago.)  So I had the weekend to relax and remember that our Founding Fathers objected to taxation without representation.  Yet, as some have wryly observed, the Founders should only see what taxation has become with representation.  For 2013, our federal government is on track to reap the highest amount of taxes in our nation’s history.  I think that you can learn a great deal about someone from how they arrange their tax affairs.  For 2012, President and Mrs. Obama only paid an income tax rate of 18 percent on an adjusted gross income of $608,611.  (Didn’t the Romneys “only” pay 15 percent?  Those wily and shrewd Romneys.)  Further, during 2012, Vice President and Dr. Biden paid an income tax rate of almost 23 percent on an adjusted gross income of $385,072.  Even though he gets government housing, $26,400 of Vice President Biden’s income was derived from renting out part of his private property to the Secret Service.  (No, I am not making this up, but wouldn‘t you be ashamed if you were to charge the government for providing your own protection?)

You may have noticed that the income tax system is complicated.  Even Albert Einstein ruefully observed that the “hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”  The present income tax code contains 3.8 million words, written on 73,954 pages.  This is 57.7 times longer than my nice Bible, which contains 1,281 pages.  The typical modern, English-language Bible contains approximately 775,000 words.  The tax code is so challenging that many federal employees owe approximately $3.5 billion in back taxes.  In fact, a recent report from the IRS indicates that 40 of the President’s key White House aides owe back taxes of $333,485.  However, this is an improvement from the prior year when 36 White House aides owed back taxes of $833,000.  (I guess some of the big increases in White House salaries helped to pay down the back taxes.)  In fact, for 2011, the last year for which the final tax filing deadline of October 15, 2012, has now passed, 107,658 individual federal government workers had an “unresolved” federal income tax delinquency.  At the House of Representatives, 454 tax delinquents owed $8.9 million for 2011, while at our venerable Senate, 234 individuals owed the IRS $1.9 million.  Sadly, the IRS does not disclose the names of the deadbeats.  (Why don’t those names ever get leaked to the media instead of licensed gun owners?)  And why is indifference to compliance with federal tax laws not a firing offense for federal employees?  Why doesn’t the President simply issue an executive order to that effect since he frequently bemoans that some are not paying their fair share?

As we see in Matthew 17: 27, our Lord Jesus and St. Peter had to work miraculously to pay some of their taxes.  But most of us don’t necessarily have that privilege.  But I am reminded of one of Arthur Godfrey’s aphorisms, who once observed, “I’m proud to be paying taxes to the U.S.  The only thing is that I could be just as proud for half the money.”  Happy Tax Day Everyone!

Debates About Commencement Speakers & Student Groups Reveal a Double Standard

This is the time of year when we begin to argue about commencement speakers. Every spring Catholic colleges attract attention for inviting (or disinviting) speakers whose messages are at odds with the teaching of the Catholic Church. This matter of honoring commencement speakers is a lot like another issue we wrestle with throughout the academic year—giving official recognition to student groups. Both issues touch on an institution’s expression of its own identity. I’d like to offer some thoughts relevant to this year’s inevitable round of debates.

This is a good reason to visit Australia: The 7th World Congress of Families is meeting in Sydney this year. Many pro-life  pro-family organizations will be participating. The Fellowship is a partner with the Congress. You will have many opportunities to be encouraged by presentations, workshops, conversations, networking, and the positive energy of dynamic leaders who believe in the future of the family, or rather, that the best future of any society lies in healthy families.

The World Congress of Families is not like other Congresses. It has an ambitious and urgent task of shifting the debate in key areas to strengthen the natural family worldwide.

While the Congress will feature over 100 leaders from academia, business, law, politics, religion, media, health, education, entertainment, and activists, who will present data and reasoned arguments for strengthening the natural family, it is really those listening and learning, in other words, the delegates, that will determine the success of the Congress.

Why? Because delegates go away and become catalysts for change – at work, at home and in their affiliated organisations.

The evidence for the origin of life on Earth lies in our own skin, folks. Superbeings from somewhere else in the cosmos did it. Richard Dawkins will be glad to know. Now the date of this story from the Discovery Channel people is April 1, 2013….Coincidence?

I recently wrote on these pages that a proposed pro-life student chapter at Johns Hopkins University, Voice for Life, had been denied recognition by the University’s Student Government Association Senate.  The student senate’s failure to recognize the student group was appealed to the Student Judiciary Committee of the University.  At a meeting on April 9th, the Student Judiciary unanimously overturned the student senate’s rejection of recognition for Voice for Life.  Internal student senate emails revealed a bias against pro-life advocates, even going as far as comparing them to white supremacists, and saying that they engaged in hate speech.  A copy of the Student Judiciary’s statement is available here: http://studentsforlife.org/files/2013/04/Judiciary-Statement-on-VFL-vs.-SGA1.pdf.

Congratulations to Voice for Life, and may God prosper your efforts!

You should know about an upcoming event this Friday sponsored by our good friends at The Family in America:

“The ‘War on Women’: Myth or Reality,” and speakers are our own Dr. Allan Carlson; Kay Hymowitz of The Manhattan Institute; Ross Douthat of the New York Times; Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America; and Ryan MacPherson, our senior editor and professor of history at Bethany Lutheran College in Minnesota. The symposium will be held on Friday, April 12, from 11:00 am to 1:00 pm, in the Capitol Visitors Center, Room 201, Washington, DC. Lunch will be provided, and the event is free.

Any who wish to register should call Nicole King, at (815) 964-5819, call or text (815) 742-4387, or email nicole@profam.org

Online for Life is an organization that see the fact that internet searches are used to find abortion “services” as an opportunity to reach others for life. According to their informational page, 750 babies were born that would have otherwise been aborted. The short video gives a sketch of what they do. Does a “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” really need to spend its money to kill children in the womb?