Tough Guys

Paul Krugman reflects on Putin — and his American admirers.

Worth the read.  (Thanks, Lev.)

Also . . .

Heads up:

Third quarter estimated taxes are due Thursday.

As this graph shows, audits of the rich are way down.  If you’re a millionaire, that’s good news I guess — unless you’re a millionaire who pays her taxes and hopes her fellow millionaires do, too.  Why should you have to pay if they don’t?

The increased funding of the IRS that Republicans oppose is not for 87,000 agents to storm your home with assault weapons, as FOX news would have you fear.  (To do what, exactly?)

Rather, it’s to visit with pocket calculators to collect some of the hundreds of billions that wealthy tax cheats have stolen from the rest of us.  (Herewith, the obligatory Leona Helmsley quote.)