ven the White House is having trouble affording gas these days. On Sunday, President Clinton's limo ran out of fuel in California, reports Reuters. Clinton also experienced car trouble on April 2, when smoke started spewing from the back of his limo while en route to an important summit meeting at a Las Vegas golf course. The motorcade had to pull off of the highway and rush Clinton into another vehicle. Presumably the Gore administration won't be plagued with similar internal-combustion predicaments.

Many Happy Returns
Your IRS forms are due tonight at midnight unless, like George W. Bush, you filed for an extension. You'll have to wait a bit longer for Tax Freedom Day — the day of the year Americans quit working to pay their taxes at all levels of government for the year and start earning money for themselves. This year, says the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day falls on May 3.

If this sounds like an improvement over last year's Tax Freedom Day of May 11, be warned: A data revision by the Bureau of Economic Analysis means last year's Tax Freedom Day, recalculated, also occurred on May 3. In 1992, Tax Freedom Day was on April 20 — almost two weeks earlier.

The Secret Charity of Unions
Dan Gerstein, press secretary for Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, says that his boss "is not inclined to push for" rules requiring unions to disclose their charitable giving. Last week, NR reported that the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees International Union (i.e. cleaning ladies and bus boys) gave $5,000 to the upscale Jewish Primary Day School in Washington, D.C., where one of the students is Lieberman's daughter. Gerstein added that if unions must list their charitable contributions, so should corporations.

Quieting the Opposition
Anne Roiphe, New York Observer columnist and mother of children sent to private school: "Obviously if we give out vouchers we weaken the public schools....But that said, who am I to raise my voice in favor of the public school? I cannot ask another mother to send her child to a 35-kid class with metal detectors at the front door. I cannot ask that some other parent be a foot soldier in our war for a democratic, diverse society. The traditional liberal well-meant position is to support the teacher's union, the people's schools. The honest position in the light of reality is to wince and shut up."