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Saturday, May 12, 2007

War is So Much More Fun When Its Free

Pentagon says employees lax on taxes

WASHINGTON -

The Pentagon's top personnel official has chastised the Defense Department's civilian work force for having the worst delinquency rate for paying federal income taxes compared with other federal agencies.

David Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, sent the scolding May 2 memo to top military and civilian leaders. It came after Mark W. Everson, Internal Revenue Service commission, notified Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the department had a relatively high delinquency rate for paying federal taxes.

I love the response from the anonymous Pentagon apparatchik

Not everyone in the 24,000-employee Pentagon appreciated the scolding.

"The Defense Department's civilians are decisively engaged in the war," an anonymous department worker said. "They are helping our combatants carry a heavy load and don't need reminders to meet their obligations."

Apparently they do. I wonder how many of these employees are Northern Virginia metrosexuals with graduate degrees and fancy cars who would never dream of enlisting themselves and would shudder at the though of their child enlisting.

I speculated aloud to co-workers, "among professional people living in the suburbs who in their right mind fails to file their taxes? I mean, do these guys lay in bed talking things over with the wife and say, 'You know honey, I think we'll skip the ole Form 1040 this year.'?"

2 comments:

M. Alexander said...

When I worked for the IRS they told us that IRS employees were the worst violators of federal tax laws. But since the salary was about $14 per house and the job lasted only 4 months a year it was a good bet that most of the workers there lived way below the poverty line. In other words they didn't make nearly what the 6 figure metrosexuals in Virginia are raking in to "run the war".

Thomas Coolberth said...

"6 figure metrosexuals" yes you point to a demographic needs to be blogged about.

It's been months now of Democrat control of Congress and where is the anti-war movement?

There's an electricity in the air in Washington D.C. The penny loafer boys from Yale and Georgetown are stoking their resumes.