Idle thoughts

Let’s say you pay $1,000 a year in federal income taxes.

How much of that goes for earmarks?

This fiscal year (2009) about $5. Next year, probably even less.

Who cares? Our house is on fire and the morons are clamoring about how much we spend on garden hose.

Elsewhere, The Wall Street Journal reports on who’s getting the money we’ve given to support A.I.G.

Among those institutions are Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Germany’s Deutsche Bank AG, each of which received roughly $6 billion in payments between mid-September and December 2008, according to a confidential document and people familiar with the matter.

Other banks that received large payouts from AIG late last year include Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America Corp., and French bank Société Générale SA.

More than a dozen firms with smaller exposures to AIG also received payouts, including Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and HSBC Holdings PLC, according to the confidential document.

I’m guessing these same folks will get more from the new tranche of money we gave A.I.G. Monday.

Next question, where does it go from there — that is, who do Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank and Bank of America and Société Générale give the money to?

They’re probably investing it in U.S. Government T-Bills.

You know, if we still had pitchforks this would be a good time to march down the street with them.