OK So the Finance Committee had 2,613 pages worth of tax reform to print up, but that was not all. They also printed the entire House bill, the one they rejected, with all the words crossed out to show where they disagreed with it. According to the 15 or 20 people I talked to on the phone, the committee had to do this. I asked them if maybe it wouldn’t have been more economical, and just as informative, if the Finance Committee had stuck a note on the front of their bill saying something like: “We thought the whole House Bill was pig doots and we chucked it,” but the 15 or 20 people assured me that, no, this was not possible, under the Rules. I was skeptical at first, but I heard this same explanation over and over, all afternoon, from people who all sounded like very bright college graduates, so that by the end of the day I was beginning to think that, yes, of course, it made perfect sense to print 4,500 copies of a document with every word crossed out. I felt like a fool for even bothering to think about it.
By the way: This document is for sale. This is the truth. You can actually buy a document that your government has used your tax money to print up with all the words crossed out. It’s called HR 3838 As Reported in the Senate, Part 1.
The Government Printing Office is selling it for—I swear—$17. So far they have sold 1,800 copies. And I don’t even want to know who is buying them. I am sure that whoever they are, they’re going to claim every single cent they spent on these documents as a tax deduction. But I don’t care. I’m through asking questions.
I also don’t want to know how much we spend each year for the upkeep on Richard M. Nixon.
The $8.95 Tax Plan
I’d like to take just a moment here to discuss my tax plan, which I call the You Pay Only $8.95 Tax Plan, because the way this particular plan works, you would pay only $8.95 in taxes. There would be no deductions, but you would still be permitted to cheat.
I imagine many of you have questions about the details of this plan, so I’ll try to answer them here in the informative question-and-answer format:
Q. How much money will your tax plan raise?
A. To answer your question, I punched some figures into my personal home computer, using the following “Basic” computer language program:
ME: HOW MUCH WOULD WE RAISE IF EVERYBODY PAID $8.95 IN TAXES? ROUGHLY. COMPUTER: SYNTAX ERROR. ME: NO, A SYNTAX ERROR WOULD BE “ME HIT COMPUTER IN SCREEN WITH BIG ROCK.” COMPUTER: ROUGHLY $2 BILLION. ME: THANK YOU.
Q. But the federal government wishes to spend $830 billion this year. Where will the other $828 billion come from?
A. It would come from people who elect to purchase the new American Express Platinum Card, which costs $250, making it even more prestigious than the Gold Card, which is of course much more prestigious than the Green Card, which is advertised to lowlife scum like yourself on television. According to the American Express brochure, the new Platinum Card is
“beyond the aspirations and reach of all but a few of our Cardmembers,” and “sets its possessor on a new plateau of recognition.” Under my plan, people who buy the Platinum Card would be taxed $500 million each, and if they complained the slightest little bit they would be thrown into federal prisons so lonely that inmates pay spiders for sex.
Q. What about nuns?
A. Nuns would be taxed at a reduced rate of $5.95, because they do so little damage to our nation’s crumbling infrastructure. For example, you have probably noticed that they drive really slow. This makes quite a difference, as the following statistical analysis shows:
ME: WHAT PERCENTAGE OF THE DAMAGE TO THE INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM IS CAUSED
BY NUNS? COMPUTER: WHAT? ME: PERHAPS THIS HOT SOLDERING IRON WILL REFRESH YOUR MEMORY. COMPUTER: A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE.
Q. What about Mark Goodson and Bill Todman?
A. Who?
Q. The highly successful game-show producers. How would they be affected by your new tax plan?
A. They would have their bowels ripped out by wolves. q. Good. In the cartoon series “Tom and Jerry,” which one is Tom?
A. Well, I say it’s the cat. My four-year-old son says it’s the mouse, but he also says dinosaurs could talk.
COMPUTER: IT’S DEFINITELY THE CAT, AS N “TOM CAT.”
A. Yes, that’s what I say, but my son claims he knows of mice named Tom.
COMPUTER: HA HA! WHAT A CRETIN.
Q. What are the steps involved in getting this tax plan passed by Congress?
A. Well, first it has to be formally introduced as a bill on “Meet the Press”; then various congressional committees and subcommittees have to go to Aruba with their spouses for several weeks to see if there are any similar tax plans operating in the Caribbean; then interested groups such as the American Eggplant Council have to modify it so that members of the eggplant industry are exempt from paying any taxes ever and get flown free wherever they want on Air Force jets; then Senator Jesse Helms has to attach an amendment making it legal, during the months of May and June, to shoot homosexuals for sport, except of course for homosexual tobacco farmers; then the bill has to be signed by President Reagan; then the Supreme Court has to check it to make sure he didn’t forget and sign
“Best Wishes, Ron” again.
Q. Dave, the You Pay Only $8.95 Tax Plan makes a lot of sense to me. How can
I let my Congressperson know how I feel on this issue?
A. The easiest way is to simply steal into his bedroom in the dead of night and stand over his sleeping form until he senses your presence and wakes up, then express your views clearly.
Q. Fine.
A. Be sure to use sweeping arm gestures.
Mutant Fleas Terrorize Midwest
I was going to write about how the president’s revolutionary new tax plan will affect you, but it occurred to me that I really don’t care how the president’s revolutionary new tax plan will affect you. So instead I’m going to write about the giant vampire fleas that are on this pet-killing rampage in the Midwest.
You probably read about these fleas recently in the Sun, a weekly supermarket newspaper with a circulation of 18 trillion. According to the Sun article, what happened was that the American farmer, all the while we were feeling sorry for him, was deluging the soil with herbicides, despite the known scientific fact that chemicals cause insects to mutate and become enormous, as has been documented in countless Japanese movies. So the result is that the Midwest is now infested with giant mutant fleas that, according to the Sun, “are themselves as large as the small dogs they kill, draining them dry of life fluids in as little as two minutes.” The Sun even printed an actual artist’s depiction of a dog being attacked by a flea the size of Sylvester Stallone.
Of course you don’t believe a word of it. You think publications like the Sun make everything up. I used to think that, too, before I checked into a story the Sun published a few months ago headlined “GIANT FLYING CAT TERRIFIES STATES.” Remember? The article that featured the actual artist’s depiction of an enormous cat? Flying? With wings? Well, I did some checking, and you will be interested to learn that every single word in the headline is true except for “GIANT,” “FLYING,” “TERRIFIES,” AND “STATES.” It turns out that some people in Harrington, Delaware, have indeed seen a largish cat. The local editor says he thinks it’s an escaped exotic pet, because it has a collar and has been declawed. He said it does not have any actual wings per se, but it jumps pretty well, especially considering that, to judge from its tracks, it has only three legs. They think it eats birds.