Happy Patriot's Day!

No, not the one celebrated annually in my hometown with a world class marathon. The one today. Yeah, tax day. There, I said it. I've been thinking about it the last few days, trying to gather my thoughts in a coherent way. Then I read Paul Begala's commentary, and realized I was not alone.

For those who wear a military uniform, those who serve the rest of us as policemen and firefighters and teachers and other public servants, every day is patriots' day. They work hard for our country; many risk their lives -- and some lose their lives.

But for the rest of us, the civilian majority, our government asks very little. Except for April 15. On this day, our government asks that we pay our fair share of taxes to keep our beloved country strong and safe.

While some people are out tossing teabags and protesting at TEA parties around the country, I wonder how many of them are actually getting tax cuts already, like 95% of Americans.

I wonder how many of them make more than a quarter million bucks a year, who won't be paying a dime more in taxes unless they are in the top one percent of the earners in the country and then not until 2011.

I wonder how many of them are on unemployment due to the economic crisis that was not Obama's in the making. Or who are getting other forms of government help, like our family got for a short time back in the 60's when my dad had to retrain after he became visually impaired with seven kids at home.

I wonder how many have veterans in their families who are in dire need of assistance and medical help when they return home from defending our country. Or how many have lost loved ones to cancer and other diseases which are being researched for treatments and cures. Or live in areas that have needed government help to recover from natural disasters?

You want something to protest? How 'bout protesting how little we give back to our veterans? Or how 'bout protesting that the entire budget of the National Cancer Institute (where government researchers battle a disease that will strike half of all men and a third of all women) is 0.03 percent of what we gave the bandits at American International Group alone? Oh, but veterans benefits and cancer research might cost money. It might require -- dare I say it? -- paying taxes.

Just for jollies I googled tax rates by country. I found this article that reports only Ireland and Iceland have lower personal tax rates that the US for a family with one wage earner with two children. Don't move to Denmark, where the base tax rate is %42 and the high end earners pay a whopping 68%.

Thanks for some straight talk, Mr. Begala. People need reminding. Freedom isn't free.