"Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barry Dave)
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.