A Horribly, Horribly Fairer Tax Proposal

What’s a fair tax plan? A lot of people say it’s one where the rich — especially that wealthiest 1% — pay for almost everything because they have lots of money. Others say fair is making sure everyone pays at least something, as right now 47% of Americans don’t pay any income tax at all. Still, others say simplicity is what makes a fairer tax plan. For instance, Herman Cain has his 9-9-9 tax plan that would replace our current tax system with a much simpler business flat tax, individual flat tax, and national sales tax, all set to a certain percentage (I forget what). It seems like a neat idea, but if you hold the Book of Revelation upside down, it’s exactly what dog warned us about.

So there are a lot of interesting ideas about taxes, but still nothing that has been proposed is fair enough. It’s like everyone else saw the outer-bounds of extreme fairness and turned back in fear. Not me, though; I fear nothing. Thus, I propose to you the simplest, fairest tax system imaginable. It will be called the “Frank J. Fleming Super Double Extra Fair Tax Plan,” and if it is implemented it will:

1) Instantly balance the budget

2) Give the poor free health care and other benefits

3) Eliminate unemployment

4) Reduce economic disparity, giving less wealth to the wealthiest 1%

These seem like bold claims, but these are the results you accomplish when you truly tap into fairness and ignore the voices in your head screaming, “No! That’s _too_ fair! Turn back!”

So how does it work? It’s extremely simple — so simple even the average congressman should be able to understand it. First, we need to come up with a budget for the next year’s expenses. Here’s the nice thing: There’s no limit on that. If we want lots of government programs and “free” health care and whatnot, we can just go ahead and add it. All we have to do is make sure we price it realistically.

Once we have the yearly budget, we then figure out taxes. This is, once again, extremely simple. We take the cost of the budget for a year and divide that by the number of families in America. And that is how much each family has to pay in taxes. Simple. Fair. Insanely fair, even.

See, with all its wonders and opportunities, America is a lot like Disney World. And Disney World costs the same no matter what your income is. It also costs the same if you go on a lot of rides or only a few. And no one complains about that being unfair. So let’s just break down how much America costs to run and turn that into the cost of an annual pass to America and all its services and entitlements.

As you can see, this tax system will instantly balance the budget, as it’s the only one that ensures that everything is paid for… unless some people can’t pay the yearly Being American fee. But don’t worry about those people — they’ll get free health care and tons of other government entitlements… just not here.

There are a bunch of countries in Europe that have apparently figured out how to supply everyone with free health care and all sorts of other government support. We don’t really know how they do it; it’s pretty amazing. We’re struggling under the entitlements we have, but they somehow have tons more, because they’re like smarter than us and stuff. I’m sure those countries will be happy to take in all the people who can’t quite afford America, because everyone in Europe is supposed to be really nice.

I don’t want anyone who can’t afford America to feel bad. Just think of it this way: If you can’t afford Disney World, you go to Six Flags. Six Flags is lots of fun; everyone likes it. And Europe is supposed to be pretty cool; they have football there, too (though the way they play it is pretty wacky). Plus, some of you may end up in Canada, which looks a lot like America if you just squint a little.

Now, there will obviously be a bit of a demographics shift in America, as the only people left will be those who can afford the high cost of American government. There probably won’t be any unemployed people left here, so the problem of high unemployment will be gone. Also, because of the demographics shift, those who were the wealthiest 1% who own everything will now be a much larger portion of the population, so economic disparity will also be solved. So lots of problems will be solved; it will just take the application of more fairness than we are usually willing to use.

Sure, I’ll miss all the citizens who no longer live in the new, fair America (or maybe I’ll be missing America; I have to check the math on this and my budget), but this isn’t about who misses whom, this is about fairness. We’d certainly, though, love for America to be cheaper so more people can afford to live here, but then we’d have to cut lots of government programs and entitlements to reduce costs. We’ve tried doing that, but everyone seems pretty certain that we really need to keep all the entitlements we have now. Thus America’s government costs a lot of money, and getting everyone to actually pay for it all is just fair. Horribly, horribly fair.