If only.
But P.J. O'Rourke is a funny guy, and he's at it again:
THE GREATEST PLEASURE OF RUNNING a country (although no politician will admit it) is getting to tax people. We Republicans decry exactions and imposts and espouse minimal outlay by the sovereign power. But we control all three branches of government. This won't last forever. Let's have some fun while we can. Moreover, the federal deficit is--contrary to all Republican principles--huge. Even the most spending-averse among us wouldn't mind additional revenue.
Now, I'm a pretty funny guy myself, but even I never came up with "Republican principles."
But he proposes a realistic new fiscal policy:
Actually the resource upon which the media and entertainment industry depends is not fame but its toxic run-off, celebrity. America has vast proven reserves. I bought the May 23 issue of a magazine devoted to vulgar public notice. Its contents suggest that Sartre was ever so slightly misquoted on the nature of perdition: Hell is People. What have I ever done to deserve being exposed to Paris Hilton's Chihuahua, Tinkerbell, wearing four designer outfits? This was in a photo spread titled "Dogs Are Children Too!" Also featured was Tori Spelling's pug dressed as Little Orphan Annie and a quote from Oprah Winfrey about her cocker spaniel, Sophie: "I have a daughter." (Named, no doubt, with an eye to using the William Styron novel in a forthcoming Oprah's Book Club segment.)I suggest, therefore, a Celebrity Tax with a low-end base rate of, mmm, 100 percent. Furthermore, let's make the tax progressive to get some Democrats on board. (Probably not including Hillary, Ted, and Barney Frank. They'll be working nights and weekends to pay up.) Given the modest talent of current celebrities and the immodest example they set for impressionable youth, we'll call it a "Value Subtracted Tax," or, better, a "Family Value Subtracted Tax." And it will be calculated on the celebrity's net worth.
I like it. I especially like what O'Rourke never mentions, but I see as a salutary side effect: we would probably begin to see Hollywood and media celebrities join the ranks of tax protesters for the first time. Who could object to that? And wouldn't such a tax itself, and such a side effect, be in accordance with, er, (and don't laugh) Republican principles?
An expanded IRS will be needed to determine who is rightly acclaimed and who is merely egregiously overexposed.Republicans aren't supposed to grow the bureaucracy. But, being honest with ourselves as Republicans, creating more patronage jobs isn't always a bad thing. The GOP includes large numbers of earnest, morally committed social conservatives, not to say cranks. We need their fundraising and get-out-the-vote skills. Here is a perfect place for them between elections, with civil service benefits and plenty to keep them busy.
Ah yes: cranks. Also known as "Republican activists..."
But...well, what about the power to tax being the power to destroy, and all that? Well, O'Rourke has an answer for that one, too:
Our best economists tell us that increasing the taxes on any enterprise decreases the enterprise's productivity. But in this case--and this case only--I'll argue against Milton Friedman. Everything (by "everything" I mean Reality TV) indicates that the business of being a celebrity does not respond to the usual positive and negative economic stimuli.People (and by "people" I mean contestants on American Idol) are willing to invest all that they have in the faint hope they'll receive a fleeting and worthless moment as the center of attention for an audience of bored idiots. (If you doubt me, compel yourself to watch an episode, regrettably available on DVD and video, of Jackass.) Tax the media and entertainment industry at a million percent and it will continue to produce a surplus of celebrities with Stakhanovite labor heroism.
True, true, true. Consider how many Americans have been willing to take phone calls from producers of The Jerry Springer Show...
As I said, O'Rourke is a funny guy.
Posted by Craig Ceely at June 5, 2005 12:51 PM