April 15

Today I officially disqualified myself from serving in the Obama Cabinet: I paid my taxes.
We had to pay an additional large sum of dollars because Yumi receives one paycheck from her employer, and I receive two paychecks: one from BYU (part time) and one from TLS (full time translation), so each employer withholds taxes at the lower level of each of these incomes. When combined together, we are shoved into a higher tax bracket and we end up short every year. Last year, I changed my BYU withholding from 4 exemptions to 0, but to no avail, we still come up short. Looks like we'll have to not take any exemptions whatsoever for the remainder of the year.
If I knew that my tax "contributions" were being spent wisely, I wouldn't feel so badly about it, but as it stands, it is a meaningless contribution to AIG, banks, car manufactures, executive bonuses, congressional staff bonuses, pork spending, reckless spending (e.g., $90 hammers), wasted foreign-aid spending, Kobe wagyu beef for the White House, office remodeling for every Senator and Representative, and so on.
In contrast, what do I need said large sum of dollars for? I am putting a child through college, I need to add to Robin's savings account for her future needs, I need to pay ongoing medical expenses for Robin's doctor appointments and medications, I have a mortgage to pay, and the list goes on and on. So it is disheartening to see an additional large sum of our hard earned money disappearing into the gaping maw of the federal treasury.