Each year when I sign my tax returns, I remind myself that I am signing a Declaration of Interdependence. That's what taxes are: an acknowledgment that we live together and are responsible to share the costs of living in a civil, clean, efficient, and overwhelmingly safe society. We are dependent and interdependent on one another, no matter how much we might wish it to be different.

Yesterday's bombings at the Boston Marathon are a stark reminder of the precariousness of our own security and the randomness with which tragedy can strike. We can never know when or how we might need the help of our neighbors, whether it's a student loan to go to college, an unemployment check to help stave off poverty after a layoff, an EMT to apply a tourniquet to a leg, or an FBI to track down the bastard(s) that bombed a marathon.

So, to everyone who pays taxes (and everyone pays taxes), thank you.