Fun_People Archive
10 Mar
GOODBYE TAX RELIEF; HELLO SHARED SACRIFICE 

Date: Wed, 10 Mar 93 17:10:07 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: GOODBYE TAX RELIEF; HELLO SHARED SACRIFICE

 From: <pep@research.att.com>
 From: casey@gauss.llnl.gov (Casey Leedom)

DAVE BARRY
	OK, middle-class taxpayers! April 15 is right around the corner! Time
for your Tax Relief!
	Remember? Last year, during the election campaign, William Jefferson
John F. Kennedy Abraham Lincoln Clinton went all over the country
saying, in one of his most sincere voices, that he was going to give Tax
Relief to middle-class taxpayers (defined, technically, as ``taxpayers
whose annual income does not exceed the amount that the new
administration spent replacing the drapes in the Oval Office'').
	So, middle-class taxpayers, you elected him, and now it's time to get
what's coming to you! According to the Internal Revenue Service, here's
all you have to do: When you get to the blank space on your 1040 form
labeled ``AMOUNT YOU OWE,'' instead of writing a number in there, you
put the international symbol for the middle class, which is a stick
drawing of a little person trying to read the fiber content on a cereal
box. Then simply mail in your return, and within four to eight weeks,
you should receive a minimum of 10 years in prison.
	That's right: It turns out that you're NOT going to get Tax Relief,
at least not in the immediate future (defined, technically, as ``your
lifetime''). President Clinton had to reassess his position on this
particular promise, and for a very solid reason: He's just another suit-
wearing weasel.
	No! Strike that! The reason President Clinton had to reassess his
position is that, after he got elected, he learned about a shocking
development. To avoid suffering a shock-related medical injury, please
be seated while I reveal this development to you:
	The federal budget deficit is very big.
	Of course most normal people and household plants were already aware
of this. But apparently Mr. Clinton, busy performing his many duties as
a presidential candidate -- formulating policies, making promises,
practicing the saxophone -- did not find out until after the election,
when his top aides sat him down and told him about it:
	AIDES: Mr. President, it turns out that the federal budget deficit is
very big.
	CLINTON (shocked): No!
	AIDES: Also, the pope is Catholic.
	CLINTON: This is unbelievable!
	In the interest of the President's cardiac safety, they decided to
hold off on telling him about the Easter Bunny.
	So anyway, you middle-class people can forget about Tax Relief. But
you will be pleased to learn that President Clinton has come up with a
new post-election idea, which is: Sacrifice. Of course we're talking
about an equal sacrifice, wherein everybody will carry his or her fair
share of the burden, as follows:
	YOU will, one way or another, pay more money to the government.
	THE GOVERNMENT will spend it on critical programs such as the Space
Toilet.
	A number of taxpaying readers sent me articles about the Space
Toilet, which goes inside the space shuttle. The toilet was originally
estimated to cost $2.9 million, but what with one thing and another --
you know how it is with plumbing projects -- it wound up costing $23.4
million. God alone knows what it will cost the taxpayers when,
inevitably, we have to send a Space Plumber up there to fix it. (``OK,
that's gonna be $3.4 million an hour, plus $12.1 million every time
Vinny here goes back down for coffee.'')
	Of course it is not the business of us taxpayers to question such
expenditures. We're too stupid to understand our own tax forms, let
alone decide on the need for a high-tech orbiting commode. Likewise we
are in no position to wonder about the following news story from the
Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress, which was sent in by several
taxpayers, and which I swear I am not making up:
	``University of Virginia medical researchers have embarked on a four-
year constipation investigation employing video games to help children
better control their bowels. With a $1.2 million grant from the National
Institutes of Health, researchers will try to teach children how to ease
the passage of bowel movements and determine how success affects family
and school life.''
	The story states that, in this study, children will learn how to
control their bowels by operating ``a video game, controlled with the
aid of electrodes attached to the child's ...'' OK, never mind where the
electrodes are attached. Suffice it to say that you'd have to pay me at
LEAST $1.2 million to attach them.
	The point is that the government needs your money for many vital
activities, and you need to just forget about Tax Relief, and start
thinking in terms of Sacrifice. Remember: If your government can buy
electrodes for researchers at the University of Virginia, it can also
buy them for the IRS.
	
	(C) 1993 THE MIAMI HERALD
	DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
[=] © 1993 Peter Langston []