With a whoop and the tinkle of a broken down player piano, twirling his bamboo cane and waving his straw hat, Finance Minister Feelgood took the stage. It was a typical Thursday evening crowd – the patrons wanted desperately to be entertained, and would quickly turn on a performer who failed them.
“Hello to you, and you, and you,” Finance Minister Feelgood jauntily sang, adding with a saucy wink, “and, especially, hello to you. My name is Michael, but, for the next hour or two, you can call me Finance Minister Feelgood. Yes, indeed…tonight, we have a show that will razzle you, a show that will dazzle you, a show that will knock your sock right over your head! I’m talking about the often intimated, never promulgated, dream of the sages: tax reform!”
The crowd gasped. “How d’ya manage that one?” one skeptic shouted.
Finance Minister Feelgood smiled slyly. “With pops, with flashes, with verve in great dashes. With tricks, with slights, with bright shining lights. You don’t really want to know how it works, friends. After all, a trick loses all of its magic when explained.” But, the crowd grew insistent. Finance Minister Feelgood’s smile broadened as he bowed deeply: “I am your humble servant.
“Tax reform – I say, tax reform – is a way of shifting the tax burden off the backs of individual taxpayers and placing it squarely on the backs of individual corporations. Now – pay attention, son; this is important – if we remove the loopholes enjoyed by corporations and the rich, the government can reduce the rate of taxation for everybody else without losing a cent of revenue. That’s a tonic, all right, a panacea for what ails our economy. If you’ll be so kind as to direct your eyes to stage right, I’d like to introduce my lovely and talented assistant, Miss Dixie Cupps, who will pass among you with copies of my white paper on this very subject. Thank you. Thank you all so much.”
Dixie walked onto the stage and lazily threw the thin booklets into the crowd. “Ten tax brackets?” Finance Minister Feelgood intoned. “Gone! Now there are only three! Business meal deductions? Slashed! Now, they’re a mere 80 per cent instead of a whopping 100 per cent! Are financial institutions getting away with murder? No more! Now, tell me, honestly: don’t you just love it?”
“I’d rather see you pull a rabbit out of a hat,” one disgruntled patron complained. “At least I understood that one!”
“Wait a minute,” another person shouted. “It says here that you’re planning an increase in the sales tax!”
“Increasing the sales tax?” Finance Minister Feelgood innocently replied. “Why, tut, sir. You cut me to the quick. I wouldn’t dream of increasing the sales tax! Not for several months, in any case. Why, that reminds me of a story, and please, if small children are present, cover their eyes. Thank you. It seems there was a nun, a priest and a junk bond salesman…”
“But, what about the sales tax increase?” the man insisted. “You’ll be taking back what you’ve given us in reduced income tax. We aren’t any further ahead than when we started!”
“Ah, my dear sir, that’s where the calcification of your cranial cavity has led you to an erroneous quantitative prognosis of what is obviously the immediate obscurity…”
“Come again?”
“You’re wrong.”
“Oh.”
“You see, by offering you this low, low tax on income, we’ve given you more discretionary dollars. This way, you can spend your money on a product you really want or need. As it stood, we gave breaks to companies we thought important, regardless of whether they made products consumers wanted or not.” Finance Minister Feelgood did a two step and held out his arms: fait accompli.
“That’s all fine and well for Conservative ideologues,” the man kept on, “but, I’m still going to end up paying the government what I do now. Maybe more. The only way I wouldn’t would be if I never bought anything!”
Finance Minister Feelgood lowered his voice and said, “Go away, kid. You bother me.”
“I mean, there are a thousand loopholes for the rich in the tax system, and you’ve only closed eight or 10. If you really want to reduce taxes, why not close all of them? Or, reduce the federal budget? And, what about the timing of your show? We get the benefits now, but we don’t feel the sting for another few months – isn’t that a transparent ploy to gain votes in the next federal election?”
Finance Minister Feelgood ignored the man, who now revealed himself as a heckler, an irredeemable crank with no intention of enjoying the show. “I’d like to sing a song for you, now. It’s a little something I wrote myself. I hope you like it…Mr. Piano, please…
My name is Michael, and I bend over backwards
To see that less of your hard-earned dollars go taxwards
Next year, look closely at your tax form instructions
From now on you get tax credits, not tax deductions
If you’re really poor, you’ll get quite a thrill
Thousands will no longer have a tax bill
Increased sales tax? You’ve nothing to fear –
It won’t hit you…well, not til next year!”
The crowd rose to its feet and cheered.