The Long, Dirty Winter

I started a new job last week. I am not going to bore you with the details except to say that I now get to go to court for the IRS and get after the folks who are screwing this country out of what is rightfully hers. You know, tax cheats like the octogenarian who had two heart attacks but failed to report the settlement he got from his employer as income on his Form 1040. And the guy who operates heavy machinery but can't stay awake on the job because he's got narcolepsy so he had to retire early and didn't pay the 10% early distribution penalty on the payments he received from his pension plan. And the blind, bed-ridden woman with cancer who never bothered to show up for her court date because she never knew she had received a notice to appear in court because she can't see. And even if she could read it, she can't get up.

Well, those are all true cases and I'm not proud of it. But it is also true that we are going after a multi-millionaire athlete who decided he didn't have enough money and needed to create some offshore accounts to hide his foreign earnings and make it appear as if he was paying expenses from his U.S. accounts to his own foreign accounts to create deductions to reduce his U.S. income. A real American hero.

But the interesting thing about this job is the neighborhood. It takes me away from the downtown area of D.C. that I am accustomed to and where all the government buildings and yuppies are to a less polarized quadrant of our great capital. Sure, there's a fair share of yupsters, but this morning they had to weave their way around the man sleeping or dying or whatever it was that he was doing lying there motionless in the middle of the sidewalk. Careful not to step on him, he might actually be dead and how would that look?

There is always someone standing outside the metro doing something interesting. My colleague saw someone taking a leak there. Not hiding behind a newspaper dispenser or a parked taxicab, but right there. I listened to one wizened soul lamenting all the pretenders who tried to be his friend. He wanted none of it. He let them have it. Last time I say good morning to him.

The best, in my opinion, is the two guys who play a bevy of five gallon paint buckets like a drum set. Talented, motivated, entrepreneurs.

In the other direction from my office, towards the Tax Court, is a homeless shelter. Couple of guys sitting on the curb smoking a joint the other day. Me walking past them didn't seem to matter. I mean, sure, I don't care, but they were the ones who were smoking and they didn't care either.

A woman wearing two or three torn skirts followed us back to our office from the liquor store where we go to get lunch. There's a deli in the back. You walk down aisles of gleaming, rounded bottles for your tuna salad on wheat. She didn't ask for anything. She didn't shout any nonsense. I guess she just liked what she saw; I was wearing a suit that day.

I have a view of Capitol Plaza from my office window. There is a building in the way so I can't see the Capitol. Beyond Capitol Plaza is a triumvirate of Senate office buildings where I had the opportunity last week to go and witness a hearing sponsored by the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Permanent, I guess, because temporary just isn't going to get the job done. On the hot seat the day I visited was one of the uber-executives of UBS. He testified in front of a panel of very irate and photogenic Senators that yes, indeed, his company did proactively solicit and assist tens of thousands of U.S. citizens in hiding assets from the U.S. government and the IRS. But, no, we will not give you their names. Here's $728 million to make it better. Yawn.

On my way back to the office I crossed Capitol Plaza. In the Spring time it will be green. The fountains will be full. The homeless people can finally take a bath after the long, dirty winter.