< PREVIOUS ] [ 1990 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >
After President Bush announced the new budget agreement and was not pelted with rotten tomatoes, I figured America must be in the mood for some new fairy tales.
Many of us enjoyed the saga of Robin Hood, who stole
from the rich and gave to the poor, so I was working on an
epic with a hero named Reggan Busch, who steals from the
poor and gives to the rich. Robin Hood's antiquated method
of income redistribution was known as highway
robbery,
whereas Reggan Busch employs sophisticated
modern techniques like HUD projects
and
savings-and-loan deregulation.
In the climax of one episode, Reggan Busch and his Merry
Mercenary Men have just cleaned out a household by clubbing
the breadwinner with a 79-percent health-insurance rate
increase.
Only steps ahead of the evil populist Sheriff
of Gotnoham, they're racing down the street to give the
plunder to doctors that already make $150,000 a year.
Just as I was trying to write them out of that predicament, the phone rang. It was my old buddy Ananias Ziegler, media relations director for the Committee That Really Runs America.
I'm doing some spin control for the new budget
agreement,
he explained. The first thing I want to
point out is that these revenue enhancements do not
unfairly discriminate against people in your economic
bracket.
Wait a minute,
I protested. You're raising the
taxes on beer and cigarettes, the major legal solaces
available to the poor. I didn't notice any taxes on fat
farms, luxurious clean-up-your-habit spas, personal
trainers, tailored clothes and other comforts for the rich.
Or were there such taxes, but I missed them?
Well, no,
Ziegler conceded. But we are raising
the excise tax on cars that cost more than $30,000.
Not Lear jets or stretch-limo rentals,
though.
Picky, picky. And you're missing the point.
Which is?
The point is, the federal treasury is in terrible
shape after all these years of deficits.
I might feel better about pitching in,
I replied,
if I had benefited from all those years of deficits. But
I'm not a defense contractor -- I've never had a chance to
sell pliers for $959. I missed out on the HUD gravy and the
Wedtech deals. Hell, Silverado never even asked me to be a
director, and I can read a balance sheet just as well as
Neil Bush could.
But you're forgetting that the '80s were glorious
years for America,
Ziegler said. Doctors saw their
annual income rise by $50,000 -- that's a thousand dollars
a week. The average lawyer's income went up 164 percent. If
you were worth a mere million in 1980, odds are you're
worth more than $2.5 million today.
We don't run in the same circles,
I pointed out.
In constant 1987 dollars, the average household income
went from $27,024 in 1980 to $27,528 now. Big deal, $504.
The average manufacturing wage, adjusted for inflation,
actually declined during the decade. Perhaps 5 percent of
the population benefited during the Reagan binge, but
you're asking 100 percent of the population to pay the
bills.
Of course,
Ziegler said. We're all in this
together, aren't we?
Many people will agree with him. My consolation is that it should provide a few more episodes for Reggan Busch and his Merry Mercenary Men in Surewould Cheatyou Forest.
< PREVIOUS ] [ 1990 Index ] [ Ed Quillen HOME ] [ SEARCH ] [ NEXT >