When you pay $3.15 for  a pack of cigarettes … $1.56 for a gallon of gas … or $3.90 for a six-pack, ask yourself: how many dimes does the taxman get?

Own a home, a car or a boat? Each monthly payment includes a hefty cut for the taxman.

Now look at your pay stub. How much is deducted for local, state and federal income taxes, for Medicare and Social Security? How much — $20,000, $50,000 or more — has the taxman raked in in payroll deductions since you started working?

It all adds up. What does not add up is this: After investing thousands of dollars a year, year after year, in their government, only one in three Americans will vote in this midterm election.

Two out of three will sit home and let someone else do it. That’s like giving your brother-in-law $500 to go play the slots in Las Vegas. You can kiss that half grand good-bye.

But more and more of us are doing exactly that.

What is insane is who is staying home: the young, the destitute and the angry white male.

According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, voter participation by 18 to 24 year-olds has declined 40.4 percent since 1966.

The working poor, those making under $11,000 a year, have seen their voter rate drop by a whopping 47.8 percent since 1966. The next cohort, those earning less than $16,649 per year, saw a 29 percent drop.

And those angry white men — the ones the media portrays as beer drinking, blue collar couch potatoes who complain about everything — well, their voting rate has dropped 27.7 percent over the last four decades.

Those long-term trends have a flip side: older, richer and better-educated voters are having an impact on elections that far outweighs their actual numbers.

When those making less than $11,100 turn out at 19 percent and those making more than $55,000 turnout at 49.2 percent, guess who elected officials pander to?

When high school dropouts turnout at 19.4 percent and college grads turn out at 59 percent, guess who gets the shaft when government programs are created?

In politics, squeaky wheels don’t get greased; voting blocs get the goodies.

And working families are a voting bloc that can upset this election ... if more and more of us turn out on November 5th.

One vote here, two votes there adds up. And, because those additional votes would not otherwise be cast, they can carry the day. It is that close.

This November’s election will decide who controls Congress, who controls the levers of power at the state level, who decides how much taxes you will pay, and who gets the goodies — young working families or older wealthy families.

If you stay home, someone else will make the key decisions — and you will have to live with their choices.

So, if you don’t vote, don’t vent.