New Haven Independent

May 16, 2006

I wasn’t really looking forward to class tonight. “Budget, Finance and Taxes.” They didn’t even try and give the session a sexy title.

I really shouldn’t dread these topics. I always did well in math. I live with someone who helped author a book titled The Pro-Growth Progressive: An Economic Strategy for Shared Prosperity. (I’m still wading through the credits.) And there’s always my dad. He’s a small town councilman and a lifelong banker. Just last weekend we talked interest rates and ATM fees over sausage and eggs. Even though he only remembered to pay my allowance every six months or so, I still inherited the savings bug. I really should love budgets, taxes and finances.

And strangely enough, tonight I did. Tonight, I may have even loved all three. For two hours, my mind barely strayed. Classmates questioned budget numbers. Presenters talked pensions, exemptions and unpaid bills. Even the tax collector had me on the edge of my seat—particularly his talk about cars.

Just last month, I bought my very first car. A silver Honda Civic with two doors and 85,000 miles. It took only four trips to the DMV to get two plates and a bad picture on my driver’s license. But it sounds like that was the easy part. If I should ever leave the Elm City, I need to turn in my plates at the DMV, pick up a receipt, head to the Tax Assessor’s office, fill out change of address forms…I’ve already lost track. And if I miss a step, 15 years later I might get a call from New Haven saying I owe $4,000 in back taxes. Yikes. This might explain why the tax collector has to constantly call the cops for angry citizens who swear, throw paper, even spit at his employees.

There’s a book called Freakonomics that’s been on The New York Times bestseller list—and my bookshelf—for about 56 weeks. I always assumed that the title meant that economists are just freaky. But tonight I realized that maybe it means that finances, taxes, even budgets can be freakishly cool…

(To read the previous installments of Kara Arsenault’s Democracy School diary, click here and here.)