April 15th is Tax Day, the day we pay our bills for civilization

April 15th never used to be a big deal to me.

Almost from the first time I had taxable income, the amounts withheld from my paychecks left me with money coming back to me from the government.

And when you've got money due you, the last thing you do is wait still deadline day to file. Most years, my tax returns were finished and in the mail by early February and my refund checks were in hand by March.

In fact, most years we would intentionally have additional money withheld, figuring that an extra $25 a paycheck wasn't as useful as an extra $1,300 on the refund.

That worked well for a long time, but now that I'm retired and collecting Social Security and my wife is on disability, we don't have regular withholding. The last two years, every penny of income tax we have paid -- both federal and state -- has been in checks we have put into the mail on April 15th.

It always amazes me that so many people complain about their taxes. Most of them have no concept of where the money goes. They'll yammer about welfare and foreign aid, but those two categories are an extremely small part of the overall budget.

Busy on tax day.

 Actually by far the biggest items are national defense and homeland security, as well as massive interest on the public debt. Then there are billions and billions of dollars in tax breaks for corporations.

I consider myself fortunate in that I have traveled extensively and in fact lived outside the U.S. for two years in the 1970s. I have seen places where taxes are higher but average citizens get far more for their money than we do here.

Still, rather than go off on a tangent here, I'll just say I agree with Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, who said "I like to pay taxes. With them I buy civilization."

I can honestly I have never resented dollar one of the taxes I have paid. As someone who believes government has a positive role to play, I can honestly say I'm disappointed that Ronald Reagan and Republicans since Reagan have reduced the percentage of income that the richest Americans pay in taxes.

The irony of it is, the less they pay, the more they complain about how much they still pay.

Part of the problem is that once we had a civic consensus, a basic agreement of at least the fundamental things government should be doing.

We don't really have that anymore. More and more people on the right seem to want nothing more than to live completely independent lives from the rest of society.

Isn't the 21st century wonderful?