IN RESPONSE TO MY EARLIER “SHARED SACRIFICE” POST, reader Cheryl Drury suggests an interesting analogy:

Totally agree with you on this, and have been saying it (to myself, big help) for a long time. I think everyone should pay something like the lesser of 10% of some sort of AGI and $100. Just something. Insurance companies learned this lesson a long time ago: with even a minmal co-pay, say $5, the doctor’s service is much more highly valued. With any co-pay, the rate of use of the insurance, just looking at numbers of appointments, drops off sharply. Then the difference in utilization rates between a $5 and a $10 co-pay is much, much smaller.

In my experience with volunteer organizations, if you can get people to pay even a very small amount for an activity they are FAR more likely to show up. There is just something about a buy-in that gives people an emotional stake in the event. Think what a more informed electorate we MIGHT have if everyone had to just pay a little.

Especially if what they paid varied according to how much Congress spent. And here’s a related proposal: “Taxes should be paid by check, by taxpayers. Indeed, if I could have my way, election day and tax day would be the same day and the back of your check would be your ballot.”

Meanwhile, reader Mark Howell writes:

If my federal taxes are any indication then the middle class is almost certainly not paying its “Fair Share” of federal taxes. My tax position is utterly ordinary. Married with three kids, gross annual income of approx $68K. I take only the standard deductions (no Schedule A) and received the Child Tax Credit for all three children. My total tax bite for each of the last three years was approximately $900/year, or barely over 1%.

So Obama and McCain can talk all they want about cutting taxes for the middle class but, in reality, there’s just not much left to cut. The really big hits to my pocketbook come from FICA and, now, orthodontia.

Promise free braces and they might score a lot of votes . . . .

UPDATE: Some readers wonder if Mark Howell can be right about his taxes. If not, he’ll probably be hearing from the IRS sooner or later.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader Rob Pinson emails:

Former student (and tax attorney) here. Mark’s taxes sound about right. First, he takes the standard deduction which knocks his taxable income from 68K to around 56K. Then, he takes FIVE personal exemptions, each around 3400, which knocks it down further to 39K. Assuming no other deductions, his approximate tax on this amount is about 12% (or even less)–around $4500. The child tax credit may be $3000, reducing his tax to $1500. He may have a couple of additional deductions/credits in there. But $900 does not sound that wrong. I have a far higher income but my total tax will be about a third of what my gross income indicates because of personal exemptions, home mortgage deductions, state taxes, child tax credit, etc. For my area, I am upper-class, I think my taxes are pretty darn good given my gross income level.

I’m not as pleased with my taxes. But the Insta-Wife does them, so she gets much more upset than I do. And reader Dan Woodbury emails:

The Bush tax cuts were a boon to the middle class and everyone as a matter of fact. The lower tax rates helped but the biggest factor was the child tax credit. The credit used to be phased out by the time AGI hit $50K. With the Bush tax cut one could benefit with an AGI over $100K, making it possible for a family to earn 6 figures and pay roughly 2% of their AGI in income tax.

I don’t know who is paying taxes in America but middle class families are not doing much of the heavy lifting. Actually I do know who is paying taxes – all those multimillionaire CEOs, Hollywood stars, high-priced doctors and attorneys and pro-athletes. And rich single folks. God bless them for their tax paying generosity. Do they appreciate how patriotic they are? I do.

I think everyone should pay.

MORE: Howell emails:

Crap, Glenn. I was just quoting 1040 numbers off the top of my head. After seeing it splashed all over the web I went back to dig out my 2007 return and my W2. Some clarifications.

The $68K gross is correct, however,

1) Cost of medical insurance, about $6K, is pretax which brings the Social Security wages down to $62K.

2) Forgot to include the 401K Contribution, another $6K, which brings the taxable down close to
$56K, which is number reflected on my W2. Added odds and ends bring the total income up to $59K.

Other than that though … nothing remarkable. Just the standard deduction, the five exemptions for each family member and the three child tax credits. Total tax bill: $969.

Approximately 10% of my total orthodontia bill. By this time next month all three kids will be in braces.

Ugh. Happily, the Insta-Daughter has naturally straight teeth.

PHYSICIST FRANK TIPLER ON LARRY TRIBE on physics and law. Ouch. I hope he never reads my piece on chaos theory . . . .

FUNNY, I KEEP SAYING THAT I DON’T BELIEVE THAT OBAMA WILL DUMP BIDEN, but you wouldn’t know it from reading this piece in the First Post. How could they get that so wrong? Maybe it’s because they made up my quotes?

UPDATE: Brian Faughnan writes: “Got a quote from Barack Obama on this. He says ‘That’s not the Glenn Reynolds I thought I knew.'” It’s not the Glenn Reynolds I thought I knew, either!

ENJOYING A shrimp-and-bacon club sandwich. Yum!

COMING OUT AGAINST RED LIGHT CAMERAS IN TENNESSEE:

The report suggests that cities cease operating the red light camera programs and instead opt for a safer, more effective and less intrusive solution such as extending yellow light times.

“Red light cameras are a troubling example of how government and business put money over safety and common sense to tag team Tennessee’s drivers,” Owen said. “It’s sickening that cities would put drivers in danger and the Constitution in peril just to make a quick buck.”

Indeed. Full report is here. (Via Michael Silence).

HMM: Forget the gender gap in wages. The real gap is between traditional men and everyone else.

WE MAY GO TO WAR WITH RUSSIA: No, not Sarah Palin: Madeleine Albright and Colin Powell.

“You’ll see ‘Hee Haw’ hit primetime before you see anyone in the media point this out.”

FREE TO NONSUBSCRIBERS: Pajamas TV covers the anti-Iran demonstrations in New York.

IF I’D KNOWN I’D LIVE THIS LONG, I’d have taken better care of myself: “The vast majority of people are quite comfortable engaging in habits that cause great harm to the old person they will one day be – cutting off years or even decades of health. . . . Many of the strategies for success in life revolve around doing what needs to be done rather than what you’d like to be doing – ignoring the inner time preference voice in favor of working towards long-term goals. Saving for retirement, for example. In just the same way, living in good health for long enough to benefit from a future of longevity therapies requires us to act as though future years of health are valuable. They are in fact very valuable: if you lose them, you also lose the chance at decades or even centuries more healthy life made possible by future advances in medical science.”

On the other hand, you also have to hedge against the possibility of being hit by a bus tomorrow. Luckily Chianti may help with both!

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: Nanotechnology roadmap draws attention for importance of nanosystems design.

KEVIN HASSETT SAYS THE FINANCIAL CRISIS is the Democrats’ fault.

UPDATE: A reader who requests anonymity emails: “I am a Republican, a bank economist and normally a fan of Kevin Hassett. But this time I’m afraid Kevin is wrong. Fannie and Freddie were part of a bigger problem that was aided and abetted by Republicans including Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. To try and pin this mess on one political party or the other is a waste of time. (Not that plenty of people won’t try.) I understand Kevin is responding to equally silly attempts to rewrite history by Pelosi et al, but this mess really boils down to too many people – including homebuyers – who tried to squeeze too much out of the housing and mortgage boom.”

MORE: Another reader emails: “Greenspan spent a lot of political capital trying to get Congress to rein in the mortgage giants. While there is plenty of guilt to be shared, there’s no question that Barney Frank was the *the* major roadblock, preventing reform. Greenspan’s legacy as a serial bubble-blower is well-deserved, but he did try, and fail, to get the legislature to contain Fannie and Freddie.”

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Michael Faraday!

A COMPLETE LIST of the Emmy nominees and winners.

SOME DEEP SECRETS OF CAMPAIGN 2008.

JOE BIDEN, CHRISTIANIST: “The political left likes to score Republicans for claiming that God is on their side, but here we have Mr. Biden claiming support from both God and Caesar. If Sarah Palin tried this, she’d send the boys at the Daily Kos into cardiac arrest. We won’t get into a theological debate with Mr. Biden, except to say that Biblical tax rates tended to run around 10%, not the 39.6%-plus that Barack Obama’s tax plan calls for.”

FREE SPEECH AT GOOGLE: “After a lawsuit from a Christian anti-abortion group, Google is allowing religious organizations to take out ads using the keyword ‘abortion,’ a rare case of the search giant admitting it was wrong. . . . Google has limits on what can and cannot be advertised; it will not allow ads for products derived from endangered species, for example, nor will it allow ads promoting violence. In the past, Google would not sell the ‘abortion’ keyword to religious groups, but did sell it to other groups, including secular groups, doctors offering abortions and resource sites like Our Bodies, Ourselves.”

FORGET ETHANOL: Turning sugar into gasoline.

HMM: “Financially independent but without long-term relationships, a growing number of young women are now turning to artificial insemination and embracing single motherhood.”

NOBODY BUYS IT ANYMORE — IT’S TOO POPULAR: Will that be the iPod’s story?

UPDATE: Maybe not, as the story’s two years old, instead of two weeks old . . . .

JAPAN LOOKS AT building a space elevator.

PALIN EMAIL HACK UPDATE: D.O.J. confirms Knoxville investigation.

UPDATE: Here’s the full Associated Press story.

VIDEO: The production Chevy Volt on the road.

IN THE MAIL: John Fund’s Stealing Elections, Revised and Updated: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy. Helen and I did an interview with him about the previous edition of this book — you can hear it here and there’s a transcript — but the new edition includes a lot of new horror stories, and suggestions of what we ought to do about things. I do believe that we’ve treated electoral fraud as a joke for too long, and that it’s past time to do something about it.

MORE FROM MICKEY KAUS on why McCain’s Andrew Cuomo idea is dumb.

TODAY’S INSTA-POLL:

UPDATE: Thoughts from Gary Becker.

ANOTHER UPDATE: James Pethokoukis thinks the bailout’s a good idea. “Just as government created the environment for the credit crisis, it failed to enact quick solutions. The situation has gone critical. It’s time for shock and awe.”