bizarreville

The President has had his whole staff dreaming up creative ways to raise taxes to pay for the myriad of new entitlement programs and chip away at the trillion-plus annual budget deficit.  He reportedly would like to find a way to do it so that the public ends up applauding him, rather than excoriating him, for yet another tax.  But how to raise a tax that would have any amount of public support?  One senior flunkie had an idea, and the President quickly embraced it.

The President will announce the new tax which will go into effect on April 1:  the Credit Card Solicitation and Junk Mail Reconciliation Act.  The new provision will place a $1.00 tax on every snail-mailed credit card offer, and the tax would have to be paid by the credit card companies by the 15th of every month.  Every “Low APR, no annual fee for the first year, reward point bonuses” Visa, Master Card, AmEx or any other mailed solicitation will be subject to the new Buck Junk tax.

As expected, the measure has received broad initial backing from citizens, the US Postal Service, and not surprisingly the garbage collector industry.  “We been busting our humps for the last 10 years with heavier and heavier loads per household,” said Mick McFunknose, president of the Collectors Union Local 69.  “Our back strain and knee strain injury rate has doubled during that period.  And it’s because of all that junk mail!  It has forced us to early-retire Collectors at 55, because they can’t physically handle the larger and larger containment units.  These are guys who would like to work the cans for another 5 to 7 years, but just can’t pull the load.  This new law could bring old Collectors out of retirement, and back on their cans.”

Industry analysts estimate the average citizen receives 100 credit card solicitations per year, which would generate about $30 billion in new revenues.  There would also be savings in the costs of waste disposal, hauling, and landfill tipping fees that would save additional money.

But the new law would go beyond credit cards, and extend the Buck Junk tax to all junk mail, including vacation promotions, real estate offers, college donation solicitations, garbagey coupon packs, club solicitations, time-share opportunities, frequent flyer promos, and most anything that gets immediately tossed.  Experts say this could generate another $40 to 50 billion in tax revenues.

One additional provision is to allow TeleMarketers to call potential customers, overturning the call-blocking laws that many states have instituted.  This had been a thorn in the side of the TeleMarketing industry for several years, and its overturn would be a great victory for them.  The only negative conceivably objectionable in the new law would be that they will have to pay 10 dollars to each person they call, each time they call, and another one dollar to the Federal government as a Buck Junk tax.  Administration officials see this as a small price to pay for reaching millions of new customers.

Even the Tea Party leadership has come out in favor of this one.   “In general, we are solidly against any/all new taxes levied on our over-taxed citizenry,” a Tea Party spokesman said.  “But, in this particular case, let’s tax the hell out of those friggin bastards.”

Disclaimer:  all stories in Bizarreville are fiction, even the ones that would be so nice if they were true.