Only peasants need to pay taxes

Main Man Marion Barry, the previous mayor of (and current city councilman in) the District of Columbia, has been found to have not filed his 2007 tax return yet, or presumably paid his tax bill for that year.

This, of course, is the man who was previously found to have neither filed returns from 1998 through 2004 nor paid taxes on more than a half a million dollars in income during that period, charges to which he pled guilty in 2005.

Then Barry turned right around and didn't file a return for 2005 either, causing prosecutors to ask that his probation be revoked. They were turned down, naturally. Government officials with tax problems seem to get free passes, of course (see Geithner, Timothy). Peasants who fail to file returns or who willfully evade paying taxes go to prison, though, so make sure to cough up yours.

Perhaps Secretary Geithner should find a spot for Barry on his staff. They seem to have quite a bit of common ground, and the former mayor could provide valuable insights on the "strategic civic accounting" that's going to have to take place in order to justify the more than 800 billion dollars of bloat and pork in the "infrastructure stimulus" bill.