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Here's a stimulating thought: Americans file their income tax returns on April 15, but today we've all worked and toiled enough to have met out tax burden for the year, according to the Tax Foundation. Why, it's enough to make you want to sing a clever ditty!

Well, not really. And the government will continue to take a cut from every paycheck. What Tax Freedom Day means is that if Americans did nothing but work to pay their taxes -- and nothing else -- it would take 113 days this year to meet that obligation. The Tax Foundation determines Tax Freedom Day by "dividing the official government tally of all taxes collected in each year by the official government tally of all income earned in each year. Governments -- federal, state and local -- took 30.4% of income in 1980; 30.4% in 1990; 33.6% in 2000; and so on. This percentage is what is properly called the 'nation's total tax burden.'" They then "use the historical trend and the most recent economic data to make a projection of what the tax burden will be in the current year." Here's the study.

Lately, we've been arguing a little about whether cutting taxes or balancing the budget is more important. A few astute commenters noted that cutting spending should have been an option, too. I agree. As wonderful as the Bush tax cuts were and remain, it will become steadily more difficult to cut taxes when fewer and fewer Americans actually pay them. And with entitlement spending on an inexorable growth path, lawmakers have few options. Eliminating earmarks would be a start -- and amount to only a drop in the proverbial bucket. Same with foriegn aid. But a drop here and a drop there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.