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It was April 13, the 250th birthday of Thomas Jefferson,
the seditious tobacco-planter who wrote that the
legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as
are injurious to others
and who campaigned for
re-election in 1804 on the grounds that no farmer or
mechanic has seen a tax collector
during his first
term.
Then there was the array of incomprehensible tax forms graciously provided by Jefferson's governmental heirs. The disparity between what America was supposed to be like, and what it has turned into, inspired thoughts toward a solution.
Most of us get bills. We don't enjoy shelling out to Public Service, but the company reliably delivers goods that we use, and the statement is quite detailed. The federal government might try a similar approach, and send an annual itemized statement:
Protection against Soviet tanks crossing the Fulda Gap in Germany, $118.21.
Interest payments to wealthy Treasury Bill holders, $347.93.
Social-security payments to members of a well-organized lobby that has learned that bloc voting is the easiest way to get more money, $950.61.
National Obscenity Enforcement Unit in the Department of Justice, to keep your neighbors from watching saucy video tapes, $3.14.
BATF and FBI protection from religious leaders in distant states, $2.98.
Protection for visiting religious leaders, $2.39.
Insuring that the bloodlines of certain artists contain proper quantities of American Indian genetic code, so that art collectors can judge work, not on any intrinsic merit, but on the family tree of the artist, $.04.
Pumping well water and letting it run into the ground at Colorado National Monument, in order to maintain a water right, $0.11.
State-of-the-art government-financed health care for Republican senators who do their level best to prevent you from enjoying the same benefit, $1.49.
Protection from Andean coca farmers, $2.43.
Protection from Mexican hemp farmers, $2.17.
Placement of federal facilities in West Virginia in order to placate Sen. Robert Byrd, $11.35.
Construction of erosive roads to meet destructive timber harvest objectives in your national forests, $.31.
Payments for irrigation projects and soil conservation projects, purchases of surplus crops, credits so that foreign countries have food and can use the rest of their exchange to buy weapons from hard-pressed American manufacturers, research grants to land-grant colleges, $121.52.
Bonuses to departing bureaucrats to inspire them to do better work next time, should their party return to power, $7.74.
Making up for the tax deductions given to companies who employ lobbyists to get access to the public treasury, $8.27.
Restoring the public treasury from the effects of the lobbying, $747.18.
The beauty of such an itemized statement is that we'd know exactly what we get from the federal government, and might even decide that times are tough, and we could do without some items next year.
A MOMENT OF SILENCE in honor of Wallace Stegner, who died Wednesday. Though he heartily disapproved of people who look like me, he was as good a writer as the West ever saw.
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