bizarreville

At his recent budget balance press conference, the President suggested that billionaires need to have more skin in the game, and pucker up for higher taxes. This comment prompted a group of investigative reporters to seek out and survey some billionaires to get their reaction. The reporter consortium published their findings in yesterday’s edition of the Bizarreville Daily Moon.

The results were surprising. One hundred billionaires were found, mostly playing bad golf at exclusive country clubs, pounding martinis at swanky clubs, or sunning their wrinkles on various-sized yachts. When asked how they felt about a 3 or 4 percent tax bump, the general response was: “Huh? Beats the s#!$ out of me. Why don’t you go ask my Accountant. He’s that flunky over there mixing me a cocktail at the bar. Ask him to whip you up one of these peach mojitos. Have him splash a little moonshine in it, then hold onto the rail.”

The report concluded that clearly the issue of raising taxes on all 100 billionaires by 3, 4, maybe 5 percent would have very little negative pushback from the affected parties…most of whom would instruct their Accountants to go find some new tax shelter anyway, and start earning their keep. It suggests that it should be relatively simple for the Congress and President to come to quick consensus on this Easy Button tax adder.

But members of the More Tax Now & Forever advocacy group point out that this is not enough, not nearly enough, to cover the important spending needs of our time. They point out that there are still people here living below the poverty line, some with only one flatscreen TV, many who are forced to continue to use cumbersome, old-fashioned non-Smart cell phones. They point out that many Bridges to Nowhere are starting to crumble, let alone the Bridges to New Nowheres that were promised, but never built. They further point out that the proposed Unemployment Retirement program, which would provide important retirement benefits to people who have been dutifully collecting unemployment checks for up to 20 years, has still not been passed. They suggest that there are so many studies that could be done–investigating the mating habits of cockroaches, weed propogation in western deserts, and the kinetics of a slinky as it flops down stairs. But none of this important work can be done without bold new taxes. They plead that it is time to decide what kind of nation we want to be.

But as the tax debate continues, it seems apparent that billionaires will be asked to contribute more of their fair share. One billionaire CEO responded, “It doesn’t matter. I’ll just tell my Board to give me a raise to compensate for it.”

Disclaimer: all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even ones you would swear are true.