Earth Day

By Jaz Barnhart

April Facts

By Hunter Dewey

Tax Day

By Emma Barbour- Morley

How did taxes begin?

President Abraham Lincoln made the decision to tax Americans because of the Civil War. He was having trouble funding the Union’s efforts from the government’s funding. Though we’re still taxed federally today, Lincoln’s system was repealed in 1871. It wasn’t until 1909 that today’s tax system was passed. Though there was a brief trial for a new tax system in 1894, it didn’t pass in Congress because it didn’t account for the differences in state sizes. Even the states agreed with the federal decision in 1913 to add the tax program to the 16th Amendment of the Constitution. Congress also passed nearly 1,000 pages of revisions to the Internal Revenue Code.

Why do we have taxes?

The reason why we have taxes is that the American government settled on April 15th as tax day, Tax collection started in 1913 with March 1 as the deadline, but that changed. The first shift was on March 15. The History Channel claims that the government had no real reason to change the date. It wasn’t until 1955 that April 15 became the new and lasting deadline. The decision wasn’t really governmentally based. According to Time Magazine, they switched income-tax day from March 15 to April 15 thus giving the taxpayer an extra month to recover from all expenses and sparing the yearly ordeal of cliches about the ideas of March. This year, tax day was April 18th.

Why do we do taxes?

Total U.S. federal spending for fiscal 2021 was about 10.1 trillion according to data compiled by USA spending.gov. The state government general fund spending was 931.7 billion, according to a report from the National Association of State Budget Officers. All that money has come from somewhere. That’s why we pay taxes, to help fund the government at all levels. The taxes collected by the government foster economic growth and development paying for essential goods and services such as infrastructure, healthcare, and education in order to achieve the common goal of a prosperous, functional, and orderly society, says the World Bank, which provides development finance for collecting public revenue.

Fun Facts about Tax Day

There are restaurants that offer free food on tax day.
The first income tax ever was in 1404 in England.
The first income tax in North America started during and during the civil war to help raise money back in 1862.

Business Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com. Accessed 17 April 2023.

By Brayden Alkire

The Walking Dead is a horror television series that started on October 31st, 2010 and ended on November 20th, 2022. The show is about a group of people trying to stay alive during a zombie apocalypse.

The Walking Dead was created by Robert Kirkman for people who like the horror genre and want to watch a gory, on the edge of your seat TV show. The main character of the show is Rick Grimes, a police officer, Daryl Dixon, and many others as the show goes on.

In the first season Rick Grimes wakes up in the hospital after suffering a gunshot wound and what he finds is more than he can imagine. He discovers that the entire population has been overrun by zombies (aka walkers). Rick sets off to find his wife and son, Carl, who are missing when he returns to his house after leaving the hospital. But then, all of a sudden, he gets struck in the head by a shovel by the son of a man named Morgan Jones who mistakes him for a walker but later helps him after realizing he’s human.

After gathering up some guns and other supplies, Rick and Morgan part ways. Rick sets off to find his wife Lori and son Carl. After riding into Atlanta to look for more supplies, Rick gets trapped in a tank by a group of hungry walkers. Just when he thinks all hope is lost, he hears a voice come over the radio. A man named Glen comes to his rescue and saves him from being zombie chow. After getting out of the tank and to safety inside a department store, the group hears gunshots from the roof so they all go up to the roof and find Merle Dixon shooting zombies. Rick confronts him about it and Merle takes a swing at him. Rick handcuffs Merle to a vent on top of the roof. Then the group spots an abandoned box truck and sees that as a way out to make it back to the base camp to safety. Glen and Rick grab a dead zombie off of the street and then grab a fire ax and chop up the walker (aka zombie) and rub the insides all over themselves so they won’t be eaten and they can make it to the truck and get everyone out. Just as Rick and Glen are getting ready to leave they remember that Merle is still handcuffed to the roof. T-dog, another character, takes the handcuff key from Rick and goes to the roof to uncuff Merle, but just as he gets to Merle he trips and drops the key and is forced to leave Merle on the roof. Before he leaves he chains the door shut so the walkers won’t be able to get through the door to get to the roof and eat Merle. Then T-dog heads downstairs to join the others to go back to the base camp. As Rick and Glen are pulling back around to the front of the store there is a swarm of walkers guarding the store. They think of a plan to get the walkers away from the store. All of a sudden, you hear a car siren and Glen comes through and distracts the zombies away from the door and everyone gets to safety and heads back to base camp. As they’re riding down the road, everyone looks around for Merle and T-dog says “I dropped the key”.

That’s all I’ve watched so far! I am really enjoying the show. It is excellent if you are into that type of TV show. All in all. I would give the show a 10 out of 10 and would definitely recommend it to everyone who is looking for a good TV show to watch. You can stream all the seasons of the show on Netflix and you can also watch The Walking Dead on AMC.