John Baer: Your tax $'s at work. Yeh,right.

HEY, HAPPY Tax Day.

This is a day that, for me, rests on the body of American life like a big, fat, pus-cracked carbuncle.

It's not that I oppose the concept of taxes. I understand the need. It's that after decades of covering government and seeing how tax dollars too often are spent, I'm a tad more sensitive to this day than most folks.

Or, perhaps not. If you pay taxes, today's the day your annual filing, along with 140 million others', is due. If you take time to review how much of your salary goes to your government, you should probably stop doing that - or start taking antidepressants.

One private tax group says that an average Philly family making $50,000 pays (in federal, state and local taxes) about $14,600 a-year, nearly 30 percent of salary.

I'll go out on a limb and suggest that this family isn't entirely happy with the level of public safety, education or transportation it gets in return.

On a larger scale, the Washington-based Citizens Against Government Waste says that last year we worked until July 16 to pay off our share of government regulation and taxes at all levels.

I'm betting that this year we add a few days.

And while taxes certainly pay for things that society needs, the Democratic Congress - along with the new president of "Change You Can Believe In" - doesn't seem averse to some old time boondoggling.

The Citizens Against Government Waste "Pig Book" (an annual look at federal pork or "earmarks") was released yesterday: Projects are down from 11,610 a year ago to 10,160 this year, but costs are up from $17.2 billion to $19.6 billion.

Examples: $1 million to combat Mormon crickets in Utah; $381,000 for jazz at New York's Lincoln Center; $800,000 for oyster rehabilitation in Alabama; $200,000 for tattoo removal in California.

Pennsylvania ranks 33rd in per capita spending ($24.86 for every man, woman and child) for its earmarks, many of which, to be fair, help local civic groups, hospitals, cops and other needed services.

The book says that veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter got 151 projects worth $42.7 million, and freshman Democratic Sen. Bob Casey got 25 worth $18.6 million.

All your tax money, some of it pumped back into your community.

One thing caught my eye: Specter got 15 grants of $24,000 each, including one for the Philadelphia School District for "abstinence education." That's $360,000 to just say no. It's from the U.S. Health and Human Services budget under "child abuse prevention."

Makes sense: fewer children, less abuse.

Speaking of Specter, he again introduced legislation, as he has since 1995, to create a flat tax. It's 20 percent. You file on a 10-line postcard.

So simple even an Obama Cabinet appointee could comply. It ends taxes on estates, dividends and capital gains (GOP primary voters like that) and allows deductions only for mortgage interest and charitable giving.

The attraction is that it dumps the 17,000-page federal tax code and rewards savings and investments to spur the economy. The downside is, some tax experts say that it benefits the wealthy more than the middle class.

The truth is, it's going nowhere. Sen. Casey, for example, doesn't support it. And Specter once told me: "Congress is really unwilling to consider it seriously."

Then there's Fair Tax, an effort to create a national retail-sales tax to replace all federal personal and business taxes. It repeals the 16th Amendment, which allows Congress to tax income. Mike Huckabee supports it. How far do you think Fair goes? So I guess we're stuck with the complex, convoluted system we've got. One under which, as the late Leona Helmsley once said, "Only the little people pay taxes."

I just wish I were taller. *

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