historiblogography

your tax dollars at work

Part One:

I get two paychecks a month. Kuwait is part of a designated combat zone, so my army pay is all tax free. I make a little over $2,000 a month in basic pay, $1,650 in housing pay for our apartment back home, $225 in family separation pay, $50 in hardship pay, and $225 in so-called hostile fire pay. That's $4,150 a month, tax free, for $49,800. I figure that's worth about $85,000 a year in taxable income.

In Kuwait, my housing, food, clothing, medical and dental care, and equipment are all provided -- in the middle of a desert -- by the army. We'll conservatively assign all of that another $25,000 in value.

So, just making an educated guess, my presence as an American soldier in Kuwait is worth about $110,000 a year in public funding.

Part Two:

Today I am taking a long hand receipt for a large set of military vehicles and transferring all of the vehicle serial numbers from the receipt to an Excel spreadsheet. I am, in other words, making a list of a list.

But mostly I play solitaire on the computer.

Just a thought.

posted by Chris Bray @ 1:01 AM