I'm reading a great book right now called The FairTax Book by Neil Boortz and Congressman John Linder. Your mention of your refund made me think of the passage I just read earlier this morning. It suggested asking people how much income tax they had to pay this year? And then it says,"listen closely and see how often you get something like this in response:'I didn't have to pay anything, I'm getting something back.'" ...... and then it says "All they can tell you is how much their refund will be. Oh happy day! They're getting some back! They're so thrilled with the refund of excess taxes seized by the government from their paychecks that they've missed the far more important fact: how much of their hard-earned wages the government actually keeps!."...." In one Fair Tax forum, a young lady said she wasn't interested in paying tax on everything she buys, because last year she didn't have to pay any taxes at all. On april 15 she got back a refund- five hundred whole dollars from the government! We then made her a sensational offer: if she'd let us take a thousand dollars out of her paycheck today, next year we'd promise to give her a thousand back- and she'd be twice as happy as she was with her five hundred bucks from the government! She didn't get it. ( go figure.)" ( I get it; I do that kind of math all the time when I want to buy something I shouldn't!)[}
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Anyhow, I can't quote the whole book but it makes so much sense and I highly recommend getting it and actually looking at how our government rips us off on taxes. Bush and the conservatives are at least a step in the right direction.