April 13, 1997

Here it comes again; April 15; tax time. Another weekend wasted filling up columns that are made easier to fill each year, yet each time take longer to complete, courtesy of our great thinkers at the Internal Revenue Service. But don't worry, thanks to our seminal Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, things are at last going to change.

Don Gingrich from the top of his Rosinante has decided to fight this evil institution. First he wants to eliminate the capital gains taxes all together as well as the estate (death) taxes. Then he will impose a flat income tax until the time, when the rest of you have seen the light and voted him into the Presidency, he can abolish all income taxes. No more taxes, no more IRS. We'll live happy for ever after.

The rationale has nothing to do with helping the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. They certainly will. But they already do under the present system. This is a fact that's not going to change in the foreseeable future, so accelerating the trend will not change the fact (since it's a fact... QED). No, the grounds for such sweeping reforms is what you all have grown to adulate, the free market.

In short, anything the Government can do the private sector can do better. Once we have privatized Social Security and Medicare, Welfare having just gone to the free market last year, we won't need the government for much anymore. Actually, we can also privatize the prison system (which is already being done in some instances) and keep the poor and the homeless away from our neat gated suburban neighborhoods. Only remains our national defense. Here too, we can privatize - all our contractors already are, only the costs are socialized. The private sector will recruit the poor and the homeless to defend us from the poor and homeless all around the world (those who do not speak American).

Once this is done, the Government, having no use whatsoever anymore will be abolished too and the Presidency will finally be privatized (as though it were not already). The free market will reign.

You should rejoice.