EDITORIAL - How much money did you pay in taxes last year? Do you have any idea? Politicians, under the grossly irresponsible guise of withholding, want you to consistently answer this question with three simple words: I don't know.

Withholding is a scheme hatched by politicians in the 1940's as a means to obscure the true cost of taxation from each of us. Under the principles of withholding, the government is authorized to take a portion of our hard earned income before we even see our paychecks. Politicians, of course, hope that if we do not see the money they take, we also will not miss it.

I am sure that you have heard the tale that you can kill a frog by putting it in cool water and slowly heating it up to boiling point. To the frog, the water temperature at any given moment in time seems tolerable because the temperature is adjusted gradually. But, if you throw a frog in boiling water, it will immediately jump out, abhorred at your abuse of animals. Withholding works the same way. The government knows that taxation is more tolerable if only a portion of your hard earned money is taken out with each paycheck, gradually adding up to your supposedly fair contribution to the government. But if the people had to write a huge check every year, the government is fully aware of the accountability that the American people would hold them to as a result.

What if our taxes were not withheld from our paychecks? What if every American got to sit down each year and figure out how much we owe the government, forking over a check for one lump sum. Generally, we want to know that our money is being well spent, and if our tax dollars were not withheld every two weeks, you can bet that the people would demand more accountability from the government because they know exactly how much is taken from them.

But the government has found a clever way, under withholding, to truly obscure the taxes that you pay. I return to the question asked in the first sentence of this article: how much money did you pay in taxes last year? Can you cite it without looking at your pay stubs? Even to the nearest thousand?

Most likely, you can't.

Withholding is a politician's best friend. Originally, it was touted as a convenient way to pay taxes, but it is only a means for our government to relax the accountability that we demand of the government. It works. How many of your co-workers got excited because they received an income tax refund last year? Do you think they are the least bit concerned over the amount of money taken from their paychecks every period?

I challenge you to go back through your paychecks to determine how much of your hard earned tax dollars are being confiscated each and every pay period. Then, demand from your Congressman accountability for that money you so generously contributed and, oh yes, ask them to get rid of withholding for the American people.