'Hell no, we won't go'

Things got tense at the big post office near LAX for taxpayers trying to meet last night's deadline for filing IRS returns (on the six-month automatic extension.) MIckey Kaus blogs the scene:

I arrived at about 10, figuring either it wouldn't be crowded, or else there would be friendly postal workers outside with bins as on April 15. Instead, the lobby was packed with hundreds of people standing in hours long lines for the relatively few postal workers inside--even if your letters were stamped and you didn't want to send it certified mail, you had to wait in line.

They steered me to the back of the line, which was outside the building--they weren't letting anybody else inside, under orders from the Fire Department. I was tenth from the door--and that's where I still was at 11:30 when a manager in a track suit came out and said they weren't going to let us in at all. Argument ensued. People noted they'd been there two hours before the deadline. They pointed out they were there to pay the manager's salary. The manager said, "You had 365 days," which of course pissed everyone off more.

I gave up and stuck my returns in the mailbox outside. As I walked away at 11:55 angry taxpayers were chanting "Hell no, we won't go."

Kaus was struck by the a) "impressive incompetence and callousness of the sort that obliterates support and respect for government" and b) "more race and class-mixing than I'd seen in a long time. A common enemy does that!"