Posted on 04/11/2012 10:44:42 AM PDT by Mark
The Wife's fingers fly clickity-clack over the calculator keypad as she works on our taxes. When she gets on a roll she makes that thing sound like Fred Astaire with an Uzi.
I hear the occasional muttered expletive or plaintive sigh and that's when I want to give her a hug, but I dare not.
The Wife is not to be messed with at tax time. This ritual is played out in millions of American homes - death and taxes, right? But in our home the burden falls fully on The Wife because I'm incapable of performing this basic function of civic life.
As a certified financial imbecile, I'm prohibited from touching the checkbook and ATM cards, and don't even know the name of our current financial adviser.
Which means I have the perfect qualifications to write budgets for the state of California or city and county of Los Angeles.
Consider the bullet train.
We were told it would cost $39 billion. That ballooned to nearly $100 billion, and the completion date was pushed back 13 years.
The public found that harder to swallow than last year's Dodger Dogs, so suddenly Gov. Jerry Brown says the train only costs $68 billion.
It's like having a cousin in the high-speed rail business!
From the start every bullet train number has been fake; the construction costs, completion dates, projected revenues - all as phony as a Carmen Trutanich campaign promise.
Just like the estimates for the new Bradley Terminal at LAX. The $1.4 billion terminal is now guesstimated at $2 billion. But what's a $600 million dollar blunder around these parts?
The LAUSD? Don't ask.
And for the umpteenth time the city of L.A.'s Chief Administrative Officer, Miguel Santana, has warned we're hurtling toward bankruptcy because L.A.'s budgets are based on unicorn dandruff.
But wait there's more!
The county wants in on the guessing game.
Assessor John Noguez - under investigation for a suspicious relationship with a tax agent who got huge property tax reductions - told the Board of Supervisors his estimate last year that the tax base would grow by $18.7 billion is actually closer to $5.1 billion. A $13.6 billion mistake? That's almost bullet train awful.
So, with financial wizards like these guys running around with the state, county and city PIN numbers, maybe I should spell The Wife and take a whack at our taxes?
My guess can't be any worse than the experts.
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Doug McIntyre's column appears Wednesdays and Sundays.
You can reach him at Doug@KABC.com
Even though he’s in LA, I still enjoy listening to his show.
Aside from his common sense, he has a great sense of humor.
Now if only they’d bring back Steve Malzberg...!
I’ve been a guest in studio with Doug. I am still flabbergasted that he went insane and voted for Obama last time. So did Al Rantel. What were they thinking?
I don’t think he’ll make that mistake again!
I guess Unicorn Skittle Poop didn’t pass muster?
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