The Internal Revenue Service, in a rare show of benevolence, has extended our tax filing deadline until August 28th of this year. So, on this day, if you are a taxpayer in Cameron, Jefferson, Orleans, Plaquemines, St. Bernard, St. Charles, and St. Tammany parishes, you have 165 days left to file. The genetic combination of a banker and a stickler, I will have my taxes done by the close of business tomorrow. Then again, I didn’t lose a family member, house, business, job and I sure don’t have to fight that losing battle with insurance adjusters, FEMA and the like. A silent prayer flies upwards for this.
We on the Gulf Coast are American taxpayers, meaning no taxation without representation. At the dawn of the 21st century, I would like to extend that caveat to good representation.
Exactly two weeks ago, I listened to an NPR interview with Governor Kathleen Blanco regarding the needs of post-Katrina Louisiana. Michele Norris of All Things Considered asked Blanco why the federal government should give our area the funds required for adequate protection, what is being done to prevent levee failure and resultant flooding in the short-term, and how the governor deals with this on a personal level.
“… there’s life that’s been stilled. And when you have that experience, the magnitude of it is what moves the heart and the mind. And then they understand the reason for the big ask, the big amount of money that it takes to make up the difference.
“… nobody can ensure anybody of their ultimate safety anywhere in this world because things happen and [wait for the contradiction] we have to count on the federal government to keep us safe.
“I think that God has erased our world, not all of it was beautiful, but he has given us another chance.”
Oh boy. With representation like that, who needs to travel to banana republics to get a handle on government ineptness? Can I be her speechwriter? Allow me to offer a sample to Frau Blanco:
We are Lousiana, the 18th state to be admitted into the Union, with a total gross state product of $153 billion in 2004. We are taxpayers, we are Americans, our young serve and die in American battles, and we provide this nation with natural resources. We don’t need the nation’s heart or charity, we want their support as fellow Americans, as members of this nation. If the government failed us over all of these decades, the rest of America has every way of being neglected as well.
Lastly, God cannot help those who have no idea how to help themselves. An engineering disaster and not a natural one, the current state of the Gulf Coast is all too earthly a matter. Just like death and taxes. Something to keep in mind as you peruse that EZ-File.
