Why Mr. Greenspend!

CW FISHER I had a dream. I was blogging against the income tax. I said we should end it, repeal the 18th amendment, right size the aggressively irresponsible federal government by limiting their food, because they're nice when they're little, but real monsters when they get too big. And so I set myself to the task of creating an anti-tax banner in the hope it might one day be posted all over world wide web, and beyond, to space--and beyond--because when it comes to trying to talk an entire nation back down to earth, the sky's the limit. In my dream I stand upon these great marble slabs that form the mighty steps that lead to the glorious House of Representatives of the United States of America when the doorbell rings, dogs bark, people bust in and run up the creaky stairs and suddenly my bedroom's filled with the voice and face of Alan Greenspan making a plea for the end of the federal income tax altogether. I'm sitting up, I'm wide awake, my wife is there. Chairman Greenspan says he'd like to see the U.S. federal income tax ended, and replaced by a consumption tax based on the Canadian model. This is no dream; this is real. I'd never come up with a "consumption" tax--sounds sick and tubercular. Mr. Greenspan says he backs an end to the complicated and unfair federal income tax which -- apparently -- is also a key component of the Bush plan. Bush, and I did not know this, Bush wants to eliminate the federal income tax by the end of his second term. I must not have been listening. I'm sorry. I apologize. I was preempted. The detractors of the Bush plan are a few fringe lunatics who speak on behalf of the poor, who tend to be hit the hardest by this type of tax. "Oh," cursed The Apologist, remembering he types for the poor, not by vocation so much as location, "Oh, I really do apologize, I honestly do." But it gets worse. Mr. Greenspend believes this consumption tax, in combination with a greatly reduced federal income tax system of some sort would make the most sense because Americans are already used to paying taxes this way. Uh huh, well, now. That settles it. I'm dreaming again. This narcolepsy's a bitch! I thought he said let's have two taxes!